In terms of actual political signs and repercussions, the most striking aspect of the WSJ thing to me is that the story being published at all is another honking signal that Trump is weak
===
Term 1 Trump was probably the weakest president in the modern history of the office. His people invested a *lot* of time and energy this time trying to project him as strong, with some success. This really takes an absolute sledgehammer to that premise though
From Wired, “Bring On the MAGA Revolt”:
… 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.”…
We cannot, we MUST NOT forget that, behind this very public discussion are real women, human beings, who suffered incredible pain because of Epstein and his buddies, and they suffered more pain trying to make sure the public knew what he did. We cannot forget about them in this online discourse.
— AltSSA (@altssa.altgov.info) July 20, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Rolling Stone, “Inside Trump’s Frantic, Failing Mission to Crush the Epstein ‘MAGA Rebellion’”:
It was a week from hell that nearly broke Donald Trump’s administration. By the time it was over, the president had sustained more blowback and political damage for his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files than he did for bombing Iran last month.
“The week was a big kick in the balls,” a senior administration official bluntly notes. “It was a lot to deal with, and there were many emotions.”
The end is nowhere in sight, as the president’s supporters — from MAGA influencers and Republican politicians — continue to raise hell over the Justice Department’s memo announcing the administration’s belief that Epstein killed himself in prison, and that it was effectively closing its case on the convicted sex offender and accused sex trafficker. The melodrama has clearly eaten away at the notoriously mercurial president’s patience. “They won’t shut the fuck up about it,” Trump privately vented — referring to conservative influencers and media types lashing out over the Epstein memo — according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Anyone who knew anything about Trump’s base could have predicted the still-ongoing tumult. Nevertheless, Trump has managed to power-walk himself backward into a worst-of-both-worlds scenario in which his seemingly ad hoc crisis management has only made things worse — despite his administration’s best efforts to put out the fire…
But one thing many Trump advisers can agree on is that the president isn’t doing himself any favors with his personal communications blitz to put the Epstein business to rest.
Over the weekend, after the president introduced his since-repeated claim that the Epstein files were authored by “Obama, Crooked Hillary,” and other Trump enemies, and therefore it should not be a matter of concern to his base, one Trump administration official conceded: “He is making it very hard for some of his biggest supporters to not think that maybe he really is in the Epstein files.” …
FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review investigative files in the criminal case against notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were instructed to “flag” any documents that mentioned President Donald Trump, Sen. Richard Durbin said Friday.
— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka.lpm.org) July 18, 2025 at 1:12 PM
===
Reup: Congratulations to Pam Bondi for creating an additional 1,000 people who know what is in the Epstein files.
Really superb work!
www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/18/p…— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Charlie Warzel, at the Atlantic — “Nobody (Not Even Trump) Can Control the Epstein Story”: [gift link]
… Whatever happens next will be a defining moment for Trump. However strange it seems to measure the Epstein conspiracy theory against, say, the president’s approach to tariffs or his bombing of Iran, this is the stuff Trump’s mythology is based on. Trump has positioned himself as an outsider who shares enemies with his base—namely, elites. It hasn’t mattered to his supporters that Trump is an elite himself; the appeal, and the narrative, is that Trump wants to punish the same people his supporters loathe. In appearing to bury the Epstein list—which, again, may or may not exist—by calling it a “hoax” and pinning it to his “PAST supporters,” Trump is pushing up against the limits of this narrative, as well as his ability to command attention and use it to bend the world to his whims. If Trump and the MAGA media ecosystem can successfully spin the Epstein debacle into a conspiracy theory that helps them, or if they can make the story stop, it would suggest once again that his grip on the party and its base is total: an impenetrable force field no bit of reality can puncture.
What if they fail? Maybe this is what it looks like when Trump loses his vise grip on his supporters. But this is late-stage conspiracism: a noxious mix of real events and twisted theories egged on by shameless attention merchants and fed into an insatiable internet until it spins out of control, transcending fact and fiction and becoming unstoppable. What if the desire for answers isn’t about justice, truth, or even politics at all? What if the Epstein dead-enders could never be satisfied, even by the publication of a client list? What if they would continue to allege further cover-ups, that the conspiracy was still alive?
All the anger may just be the result of an addiction to an information ecosystem that has conditioned people to expect a right to “evidence” that justifies any belief they might hold. To believe such a thing would suggest that the epistemic rot, reality decay, and culture of conspiracism are not by-products of a specific politician or political movement, but something deeper—something intrinsic to the platforms, culture, and systems that define our lives. It would suggest that the fever will never break.
Earlier this week, I wrote about Epstein, making a timeline for my own clarity. It was originally appended to the piece but was too long. So here it is on my personal site, if useful. pbump.net/timeline.html
— Philip Bump (@pbump.com) July 18, 2025 at 7:02 PM
===
Release the Epstein files now!
— Republicans Against Trumpism (@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social) July 20, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Sharing is caring! — In SFGate, Drew Magary has a wonderful, succinct summary — “Jeez, I wonder why Trump won’t release the Epstein files”:
When Donald Trump doesn’t want to talk about something, that usually means that we need to talk about it. That’s especially true of the president’s most recently adopted third rail, the late Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump would really like everyone to shut the f—k up about his old friend and has communicated those feelings with that classic Trump subtlety that we all know and adore:
“STOP TALKING ABOUT EPSTEIN!!!!!”
But why does Trump suddenly have a bug up his ass about Jeffrey Epstein? More important, why should you pay attention to THIS Trump scandal when every other Trump scandal comes and goes like a summer afternoon rainfall? Why shouldn’t you just go eat a Pop-Tart instead, given that you’ll likely accomplish just as much in doing so?
Well dear reader, I’ve taken it upon myself to gather up what credible intel I can find on the Epstein matter, and now deem it worth your time. I’ve even gone to the trouble to present my findings to you in that classically digestible format: the FAQ. So sit down, grab that Pop-Tart (brown sugar would be my rec) and get ready to throw it back up.
Who was Jeffrey Epstein?
A former teacher who switched to a career in finance at Bear Stearns. From there, Epstein became a boutique financial consultant (and likely inside trader) who only accepted billionaires as clients. But Epstein’s rise among society’s elite can likely be owed to far darker forces than market manipulation. In 2019, he was charged by the feds with trafficking underage girls with the intent of sexually assaulting them. Epstein also pimped victims out to some of his most powerful friends and clients. Perhaps in tribute to Diddy, Epstein hosted these group assault “parties” in lavish settings, including in Manhattan, in Palm Beach, aboard a private jet that went by the nickname the Lolita Express and on his own private island. While Epstein’s closest associate and lover Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein run this illicit sex ring and luring in victims, the man himself was never convicted in that matter. This is because he died in his jail cell while awaiting trial. Authorities ruled the death a suicide…Are we moving on?
We are not, and we strangely have Trump’s supporters to thank for that. After breaking with Trump on his Big Butthole Bill, Elon Musk straight up tweeted that Trump’s name was on Epstein’s client list. After Bondi buried the files, Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, was so pissed that he ghosted work the next day and then got into a big ol’ row with Bondi about it when he finally showed back up at the office. Bongino’s direct boss, FBI Director Kash Patel, was rumored to ponder submitting his resignation over the matter (he didn’t, eventually falling in line). GOP members of Congress are pissed at Trump, with House Speaker Mike Johnson going so far as to call for their release, although in the squirreliest, most Mike Johnson manner possible:“But at the same time Johnson publicly called for the files to be released, he opposed a procedural motion advanced on Tuesday by Democrats that would have set up a House vote to release them,” the Washington Post reported.
Fun times for Magic Mike www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/u…
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 1:01 PM
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You know the wheels are coming off of the Epstein files scandal when the X bots are confused.
A MAGA bot network on X is divided over the Trump-Epstein backlash www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne…— Ann Werner Writes Great Novels (@mswerner.bsky.social) July 20, 2025 at 12:35 PM
===
@raskin.house.gov on why Biden didn't release the Epstein files: "The DOJ under Biden brought the prosecution against Maxwell, so obviously Biden wasn't trying to suppress anything. The GOP stories make no sense. They say Biden & Obama made this stuff up about Trump but then they never released it?"
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) July 20, 2025 at 10:49 PM
===
Do not give up prematurely on the idea of hounding him from office
— Robert Black (@hurricanexyz.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 1:05 PM
SpaceUnit
To me the most absurd and hilarious aspect to all this is that even the MAGA folks most outraged about trump’s stonewalling can’t actually bring themselves to consider that he’s in any way complicit in these sex crimes, even as the circumstantial evidence for that keeps piling up to the rafters.
Dang, the power of a cult.
Aziz, light!
The maga mob is upset with Trump because he hasn’t released the truth, which is that the entire Democratic Party establishment is running a global child sex trafficking ring. (They are also upset with Trump because the brown people are still here.) If the files go public and they do not expose Democrats, the cult will conclude that the truth has been suppressed by the deep state and it isn’t Trump’s fault, because nothing ever is.
frosty
@Aziz, light!: I agree about the cult. But the cult-adjacent may back away. Or that’s what I hope.
The neighbors with Trump flags haven’t taken them down yet, but I’m watching …
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Aziz, light!: That was always the trap, right? Trump sold them a lie, promised to show them facts that would support the lie, and now they’re demanding that he show that the lie is supported by the facts, except the facts will show Trump to be a liar, so he can’t release the facts, and his attempts to bury the facts were so ham-handed that it tested the credulity of even the most credulous of the faithful.
This is what they mean by “hoist by your own petard”. And if it weren’t for all the actual victims in all this, both Epstein’s victims and all the innocent people being victimized by the Trumpists’ evil, I’d be enjoying Trump’s agony.
Msb
Yes, the victims of Epstein’s crimes are being erased. But women are just props and scorecards for Donald and MAGA.
Ten Bears
I didn’t believe he was dead then, I don’t believe he’s dead now
People like that don’t die downtown …
Archon
The thing I just processed is that Epstein didn’t just represent a scandal. Trumps exposure of it was supposed to implicate the entire Democratic Party writ large. This was part of the ENDGAME to a whole bunch of MAGA folks subscribed to. The casus belli event to take the gloves off against the left where any amount of repression or violence would be justified because it would be proven that Democrats are the party of evil pedophiles. It was the path to total victory where the could destroy us and feel like they were doing the Lords work while doing so. The truly surreal part is the idea that Trump might be personally implicated in the scandal hasn’t even hit most MAGA yet, it’s crushing enough that their political nuke against the left might be a dud.
WTFGhost
Random thought: Trump sued the WSJ (all my opinion/guess!!!) because he saw the letter as a confession. If he thought it fake, it wouldn’t have mattered so much, that he couldn’t even wait for an attorney to file the lawsuit for him.
Now: that letter could be a confession to nothing more than raping a sex slave, but, Trump seems to be aware that it doesn’t matter that it might not have been called “rape” 25 years go, it’s called “rape” now.
But in my opinion, the horrified response Trump had to the letter is such that, *to him*, printing that letter was like stapling his scrotum to the table, so his balls were on two bulls-eyes, it was the End of Everything, and that only makes sense if he sees it as a confession. That he could blow it off as “we liked to have sex with young women of legal age, who, yes, were call girls… OMG they might have been SEX SLAVES!!! THAT EVIL BASTARD!!!” – that didn’t occur to him, because he couldn’t think of how the letter looks, to someone who doesn’t know the truth.
Ruckus
When a political party only wants betterment for zero reason other than the ability to hide their BS under, in this case, a very, very large rock, seemingly a rock the size of a small planet, there is likely a lot going on that very likely should be made public.
Viva BrisVegas
Trump took a swamp and made a sewer.
WTFGhost
@Archon: Yes. Even if you didn’t subscribe to QAnon writ large, I’m sure a lot of people smoked a whole bunch of QAnon-hybrid hopium. It’s what made the cause so grand, so magnificent, it’s what made you feel totally surrounded by love, “…unlike those evil OTHERS who probably eat the flesh of their unborn.”
Even if you scoffed at QAnon, you probably thought “But I bet Epstein will bring down Clinton!” if you were a member of the Faithful.
NB: I could easily believe Clinton could rape a sex slave, without realizing she was a sex slave. Also, note that even if you excuse him for his lack of knowledge, she was still raped just the same. Extreme Consent can be complicated, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider its views.
Martin
@Aziz, light!: It won’t matter if they think it’s Trumps fault or not – the thing they fundamentally had invested in Trump was that he was going to expose the corruption (the deep state, etc). If he can’t, then he at best is useless and at worst becomes part of the corruption.
I’m still convinced my thesis is correct that MAGA (the ~30%ish of Trumps base that seem the most loyal) are principally motivated by exposing the conspiracy and are really only invested in Trump as the vehicle through which that is achieved. If he fails, they’ll return to their view that all politics is corrupt, Trump included, and back away from politics. Where that leave the other ~70% I’m not sure. I suspect they see politics in a somewhat more rational light and so long as Trump is doing the policies they like, they’ll stick with him.
Trump is telling the base what to do and they’re not doing it, and Trump isn’t immediately reversing. I don’t think we’ve ever had a situation where he and the base were at odds and they didn’t quickly resolve it, so something new is happening here.
TS
@WTFGhost:
Why Clinton? Because that is the conspiracy theory? Because he was a womaniser? – if it was a democratic politician it would be the end of their career – the stupidity is we know what trump has done & nothing seems to end his career.
I will be amazed if the FTFNYT keeps going with this & trump will probably get money from them and the Wall Street Journal
WTFGhost
@TS: Clinton was seen with Epstein often enough, that, because he was a womanizer, I’d believe he’d have sex with a seemingly-willing woman, or with one whose willingness was purchased.
I’m not saying it to be harsh on Clinton; it’s just, if I saw he had sex with an Epstein-adjacent woman, we’d have to recognize that he might have committed a terrible crime… even if we also realize that he might not have done so with the mens rea needed to make him a horrible criminal.
Martin
@TS: So, the NYT and WSJ motivations are probably informative here. They know Trump is going to go to war with them over this. So why do it? My guess is that the WSJ and NYT thinks it will stick. Why do they think that? Is there more coming that they know about?
Gloria DryGarden
@WTFGhost: could we leave Clinton out of it. They’d lik3 us to refocus on who els3 was bad, attack some dems…Yes he was a womanizer, and probably has done sexual harassment that he was charged with. A few instances. And he knew Epstein, It’s a separate topic, we mustn’t use him as a distraction. He was also an effective president. It sucks , the other stuff. But he wasn’t doing minors, or trafficking, or bragging on what he could get away with, and how soon is this girl old enough to date. And layering on lies thicker than his makeup. You know who is, and has been, though:
trumpie, man, he’s so implicated, so many accusations and victims he’s bullied into silence. So many. It’s rather sickening.
I appreciate the opening post mentioning the women victims. This makes it all come back up, I hope no one kills themselves in this crisis; it’s difficult.
eta, does Pam bondi only lie? It’s amazingly vile, the stuff I read that she says. I guess if you’re pretty…
I want to say, ‘we’ve come a long way baby.’.
Quaker in a Basement
The WSJ’s editors (and maybe their lawyers) earned their paycheck on this. Go back and read their story carefully. They never reported that Trump wrote the card, drew the picture, or signed the card. Instead, they reported that among the cards collected for Epstein’s 50th, there was a card that had Trump’s name on it, that the image was drawn (passive voice) with a heavy marker, and that the squiggly signature added the appearance of pubic hair on the drawing.
What’s more, they included his denials in the original story, not in an update or following day story.
He’s got nothin’.
Quaker in a Basement
@Martin: Why?
Because it’s news. Once in a great while, one of our news organizations actually does its job.
Quaker in a Basement
@Aziz, light!: You could be right. I wonder why Trump hasn’t tried to play the “Biden destroyed the evidence” gambit, though.
WTFGhost
@Gloria DryGarden: I suppose the best explanation I have for bringing him up, is, “let me prepare myself, mentally, for the worst thing I could imagine, showing up in the Epstein.”
My understanding of Clinton was, he really liked sex, and he really liked being loved, and I could see that leading to something bad, because of his friendship with Epstein. But, everything I know of him, to date, shows that he was into consent culture with occasional ugly mishaps
So, priming myself for the worst I can expect, meant saying to myself “I could see him wanting to have sex with a woman who proclaimed to want to have sex with him. But, we’ve already established, in discussion, that any Epstein-attached woman could be a slave. So, he might have….
Now, what if he didn’t even do that? Cool, and plenty of relieved laughter at Republicans coming from *my* direction.
What if he did *more* than that? I’m ready to let him face those consequences. I know that some people seem awfully decent until you take into account the rapes they commit, and, even if you love Mr. Clinton as I do, if I saw evidence he did worse than flash his weenie, in hopes of getting laid, I’m ready to weigh the evidence fairly.
So, yeah, bad mention, it was just me clearing my head.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@WTFGhost: Also don’t forget, Epstein’s social circle may not have all been “clients”; some may have been carefully cultivated character witnesses.
Glory b
@Gloria DryGarden: Exactly!
Why is there this seemingly irresistible compulsion, that people are so desperate to both sides this?
Why can’t we just let Trump stew in this?
JoyceH
@Quaker in a Basement: Something I’m not clear on and perhaps the WSJ left ambiguous – where IS this birthday book? Who has custody of it? Is it the DOJ, or some representative of Maxwell? There are supposed to be fifty letters. Who wrote the others and what did the other letters say? I strongly doubt that all of the fifty were “clients” – as others have noted, Epstein cultivated an “outer ring” of friendly contacts among the rich and famous who saw him just as a popular guy and a useful contact.
Anyway, what strikes me about the Trump letter is how ineffably weird it is! I doubt if any of the other letters will have quite such a creep factor. And if someone could get ahold of and do a forensic analysis on the original letter, I’d imagine there should be some nice distinct fingerprints.
Aussie Sheila
@Quaker in a Basement:
Murdoch, having got his tax cut and USSC judges has no more use for trump who is now a lame duck. His focus is now on the next gop nomination for President.
trump is learning the hard way. Don’t get in the way of people who ‘buy ink by the barrel’.
My money is on Murdoch. He has a dynasty to protect that spans the Anglo sphere. trump is simply no longer useful.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Aussie Sheila: People like those never quite seem to get that it’s not a zero-sum equation. It’s entirely possible for them both to lose, especially if the Trumpist faction (without which the 21st-century Republicans are doomed) gets completely demoralized, and the Democratic coalition gets angry and energized enough to overcome the structural barriers in their way.
Princess
What do m seeing out there is Trump doing everything he can, dangling every carrot he can find to distract from this, and it’s not working, not even with the press, not yet.
Aussie Sheila
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Indeed. Which is what I’m hoping for. The people who don’t usually vote who did in 2024 will go back to their depoliticised slumber and a significant number, say 5-7% of ‘ normie’ gop voters finally give up on the Party. In any case, it will take vigorous and smart campaigning to make this happen.
I believe it can be done.
p.a.
I’m hopeful because the “I’m better than them: I know there’s a worldwide (DEMONCRAT) network of sex abusers” is embedded in their self-image (Slacktivist has written multiple analyses on this psychology (Satanic Baby Killers, the Anti-Kitten Burning Coalition)) and the dissonance in those people must be reaching some sort of breaking point, BUT ALSO TOO this belief indicates such a degree of teh stoopid that maybe tRump & toadies will manage to inject a new stoopid to stem the tide, like backburning to fight a forest fire.
So far no; fingers crossed for more pitchforks & torches.
gene108
There’s no reporting that implicates Bill Clinton did anything nefarious with Epstein.
Epstein was known as a billionaire finance guy, who donated enough money to politicians and causes to buy his way into high society.
bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67865190.amp
Princess
@Martin: My own suspicion is that the NYT and WSJ are pursuing it for money reasons. Maybe to warn Trump off firing Powell, maybe tariffs, maybe something else. My hunch is that the big money is getting restless and this is a way to control Trump. My guess is the end result will be Trump gets the message and draws back from what is of most concern to them and the stories die down. The damage to the base won’t be fully repaired though.
Princess
@JoyceH: Let’s see the whole book; all 50 letters.
p.a.
@Princess: Do malignant narcissists back down? Especially when they head the most powerful organization on earth? (Besides the Illuminati!🙄)
Baud
@gene108:
People want to believe.
Baud
At least RFK Jr. is standing up the corporations.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Wonder how long it’ll take MAGA to look again at the folks Trump has surrounded himself with in his second term and realize that, gee, they look like the super rich and powerful creeps that would be on the list of an Epstein like guy. Musk is thoroughly weird, Thiel is even weirder, and gay which increases the weird factor for MAGA folks, and it’s not hard to imagine some live boys is his past. Zuck is… somewhat more normal, I guess but still a megalomaniac whose vision for technology vis a vis humanity that sounds an awful lot like The Matrix. Then Bezos and the rest seem more normal but still super rich and well connected…what if all this big conspiracy amongst Democrat elites was a bait and switch to distract them all from the REAL power grab that was right in front of their faces the whole time! Another layer to the the conspiracy where Trump and his cronies are the villains! What a twist! It bears a pretty striking resemblance to our current reality. They seem like maybe they’re on the verge of putting that all together.
Aussie Sheila
@gene108:
Personally, based on nothing factual, I don’t believe Clinton was involved with underage women. But even if he was, so what?
It would be reprehensible of course, but how does that affect what happens politically now? I seem to remember Reagan being elected six years after Watergate.
I wouldn’t be hyperventilating over any possible Clinton involvement. In any case, ‘fake news’ as a slogan might cover it.
Baud
Princess
@Baud: Ha, I was just coming in here to post these. I’m not a huge fan of Mueller she wrote but this is really good work and very informative.
Geminid
@JoyceH: That letter doesn’t sound to me like Trump wrote it. It’s too clever and elliptical.. It seems more like something Ghislaine Maxwell would have written and presented to Trump for his signature. But Trump signed the letter, and he owns it and its contents whether he likes that or not.
The letter is evidence of a time in Trump’s life that already is amply documented with photographs and personal accounts; the years when Epstein was Trump’s running buddiy or “wingman.”. This relationship has been lying in plain sight for a couple decades now, and people don’t need some “Epstein Files” to learn about it. It’s been staring them in the face all along.
The letter’s publication clearly hit Trump where it hurt though. And it’s just not in him to shrug this off. Trump should have, but he has turned the Kennedy familiy maxim “Never complain, never explain” on its head. For Trump, it’s “Complain constantly, and explain unconvincingly.”
Baud
Guess which paper.
Kosh III
Trump official said “The week was a big kick in the balls,”
Kick some more, harder.
MagdaInBlack
Oh he’s cranky again (still?) : Sunday truth social post raging at WSJ, says ” People don’t explain to me, I explain to them!!”
Ok, Fredo.
I’m not posting from his cesspool, I’m sure it will be posted here eventually.
u
Trump has so many toxic attributes that it’s easy to forget that he’s also really really stupid. Trump caused this MAGA revolt by making such a big issue about Epstein in the first place. He could have put the Epstein situation to rest six years ago by just refraining from talking about it. What a moron.
Princess
@MagdaInBlack: oh interesting. It’s in response to a WSJ report about Bessant leaning on Trump to keep Powell. Grist for my notion that this may be a driver of their attacks on Trump. I wonder if Bessant was the administration source for the NYT article on the internal reaction of Trump to the Epstein stories. Could be – the person sounded sane which cuts out a lot of people.
French Onion Soup
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Thiel’s model boy toy died of suicide after a massive public argument between Thiel and his husband and the information that came out confirmed the met fueled gay sex parties. MAGA has not said anything about this nor has JD Vance.
mappy!
I wonder if MAGAville’s reaction to the (Epstein) nothing to see here is more of a cumulative knee-jerk reaction to the litany of things not delivered, the latest straw as it were (not the final straw)… It didn’t end in 24 hours, economy’s not fixed (grocery prices still rising), deporting brown people hasn’t fixed anything, the tariffs laid me off and FEMA won’t come and fix anything… And now you’re telling me there’s no Dem pedo ring? Lies, more lies and…
montanareddog
@mappy!: It would be nice if that were the case. Unfortunately, that requires a level of joined-up thinking for which there has been zero evidence so far.
Insane levels of RWNJ propaganda and of motivated reasoning are a huge counterweight to what seems obvious to left wing eyes.
Gvg
@WTFGhost: I didn’t believe the Monica Lewinsky story until the DNA test proved it because the republicans had been caught in so many lies about him already. I dismissed the stories because of credibility. They cried wolf over whitewater and other matters over and over. So it is wise to prepare ourselves for somebody disappointing being implicated, while still waiting on evidence.
mappy!
@montanareddog: Keep in mind that all the RWNJ propaganda isn’t paying for the groceries that MAGAville inhabitants have to buy… That’s a constant.
Shalimar
@Gloria DryGarden: I don’t consider Bill Clinton to even be relevant. He was president 25 years ago. It taints his legacy from the immediate post-service years if he did more than just accept free flights for an African tour, but he has not done anything public in decades. He doesn’t matter anymore.
Also, accepting a few sessions with sex slaves would be horrible, but it wouldn’t even be close to the current president being best friends with the pimp for 15 years. It just is not the same thing.
hueyplong
@Shalimar: I’m not sure how Clinton could have given the slip to his Secret Service protection to engage in anything real with Epstein. That said, I don’t much care about collateral damage as long as Trump can be seriously wounded and possibly killed politically. I view it as similar to the casualties necessarily incurred in ridding the world of Hitler.
geg6
@frosty:
Two of the three houses in my neighborhood that had giant Trump banners outside have taken them down in the past week. I can’t know why, since I don’t know these people and don’t want to, but it is interesting.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
They don’t need him anymore😒
Just leaving this thought.
catclub
Ideal way to bribe Trump: Lose a libel case to him.
jonas
This is the funny part — right now they’re pissed because he seems to want to cover up for all the liberal elite pedophiles implicated in the files. What they don’t seem to have grokked yet is that he wants to seal the files because they implicate him.
I
catclub
There IS a client list, and I think Senator Wyden is going for it: The names on all the money transfers to Epstein’s bank account. $1.5B !!
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@rikyrah: If they’re thinking that, then they’re probably thinking they can keep the Trumpists, the Southern Strategy voters, as part of their electoral calculus, that they’ll all fall in line behind the new Chosen One.
I am not entirely confident in that assumption.
Denali5
Follow the money. It sure seems like MP was financially involved in Epstein’s trafficking schemes.
zhena gogolia
@Msb: Too bad they voted for him in such numbers.
zhena gogolia
@Denali5: Who’s MP?
zhena gogolia
@geg6: The one (sign, not banner) in my neighborhood is still up.
jonas
@catclub: I hope Wyden is able to get this info. One thing we still don’t know (afaik) is what, exactly, Epstein did to make his money. He appears to have been some kind of financial adviser to the super-rich, but there’s no evidence that he actually had a formal advisory business, any kind of fiduciary or securities licenses, or that he had more than a few select “clients,” like the Victoria’s Secret guy. Yet he could afford a private island.
I wonder if the real Epstein “client list” isn’t the one of all the statutory rapists, but of the rich people he helped launder money for or evade taxes or something.
RevRick
@Archon: This notion that the Democrats are evil elitists goes back to at least the days of Rush Limbaugh with his harping about FemiNazis, out to destroy the natural order with their radical agenda. It gained more traction when Bill Clinton, an obvious horndog, became President and Hillary, who adamantly declared that she was not a “stand by your man and bake cookies “ woman, kind of did. Whitewater, with its hint of insider trading, added fuel to the fire, and from there all sorts of wild conspiracies about a murder hit ring blossomed. Then there was Al Gore’s campaign receiving shadowy foreign contributions and John Kerry’s windsurfing all feeding into this belief system on the Right that Democrats were elitists in cahoots with forces out to destroy the American way of life. And part of this rightwing narrative was that Black voters were being kept on the Democratic “plantation “ with all sorts of bribes and favors. (Never mind the damned good reason Black people have for voting for Democrats if only because of the absolutely repulsive racism of the Right.)
Donald didn’t invent the Epstein files, but he certainly was going to play along with the rightwing narrative that Democrats are out to destroy the family by promoting abortion/feminism/teh gays/drag queens/trans/illegal immigration. Again, never mind the clear evidence that the greatest pulverizer of American families is naked capitalism. But acknowledging that would destroy the whole reason the Right exists.
The Right has fixated upon the Epstein files, because they were sure, absolutely sure, that it would prove how demonic Democrats really are. And now the one person who will probably be burned the most by its revelations is the guy who, they have elevated to godlike status: Trump.
Hahahaha
Gin & Tonic
Spoiler alert: MAGA will fall in line. There will be no revolt.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Very hard, but they’re still managing it.
Anecdata: In my neighborhood up till a couple of months ago there were still a couple of houses with Trump 2024 campaign signs, and a third that flew a Trump 2024 flag. Those are all gone.
Not too far from us, there’s one house we pass that has a yard full of flags and a giant banner of Jesus putting a loving hand on the shoulder of a devout kneeling Trump. That shit is still up. That guy is no longer tethered to reality.
We had a surprise visit from my sister and BIL over the weekend. I know him as a wingnut, but my last political discussion with him was during the W administration. I avoid the subject so I can keep liking him. My sister out of the blue volunteered that “neither one of us voted for Trump”.
I see the focus on his edema as the face-saving exit ramp. He’s going to resign “voluntarily” on medical grounds and the junta that forces him out is going to try to keep the destruction going with JD Vance as figurehead.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
That’s an interesting manifestation of the Crazification Factor.
Over the years and lost in all the noise were some voices early on about Hair Furor’s influence when he’s on the ticket and those voices referenced more or less the voter block you discuss.
It’s turned the “Dems win in higher turnout elections” thesis on it’s head.
fancycwabs
There’s still time for Trump to leave office on the condition that Vance grant him a pardon for his child rape.
Princess
@jonas: that’s what I think. The victims of sex slavery can’t be forgotten but what terrifies the powerful people is the money stuff coming out.
zhena gogolia
I agree with G&T that Trump won’t leave office and MAGA will fall in line. The hope is that this weakens him and weakens his support among non-MAGA who always vote for Republicans. I know quite a few such people.
Bupalos
@Glory b: For Trump and his political power, the worst possible way for this to go isn’t a shocking (?!) revelation that he abused a 16 year old. It would be for supporters to come to believe he protected Clinton and the elite class that is responsible for ‘farming the children.’ Farming the children is a mythologized way of talking about one’s own harm, fear, and despair.
u
@Shalimar: Yes, Bill Clinton. Ooga Booga. One obvious characteristic of the right wing is their obsessive focus on the past, while ignoring the present and the future. Bill Clinton is a figure from the past, and every year he is more irrelevant to people who are not only young but middle-aged. My older son is 37 years old with the full package of adult stuff (wife, kids, career, mortgage, etc.). Bill Clinton took office when my son was four years old, and left office when my son was twelve. To the degree that my son thinks about Bill Clinton at all, he was “that guy who was president a long time ago”. The leader of the Republican Party for the past ten years is a befuddled old white man who watches a lot of Fox News — and that seems to be the only demographic that the right wing is really interested in.
prostratedragon
Toles, 10 years ago in September
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I ran into some guys like that on Facebook – they were all manspaining to the FemNazis that is was natural order that women submits to the man because he stronger. Which is pretty funny because everything I’ve read about pre-history is sure, back the day it was dating by kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome, BUT for the guys it was only a matter of time before some other guy bushwhacked him and ran off with the newly widowed Misses. The natural order is for the women to have two or three husbands who died by violence.
As the Iliad put it “Sorry about your daughter dear, now for relaxing hot bath” last words of King Agamemnon
jonas
@TS: Bill Clinton did have a minor association with Epstein and is known to have accepted several trips on his jet. He claims he was soliciting Epstein’s philanthropic support for the Clinton Foundation or other charity projects at the time. This was before Epstein’s conviction in FL in the early 2000s for soliciting prostitution and Clinton claims he never spoke to him again after that. So, yeah, not a good look, but there’s absolutely no evidence — save in the fevered imaginations of the Q-Anuts — that Clinton knew anything about, or was involved in, the parties, the sex trafficking or any of that stuff.
There are no videos of Clinton yukking it up with Epstein at a party, pointing out all the hot young girls on view…
Gin & Tonic
@fancycwabs: Never happen.
jonas
@Gin & Tonic: That’s my bet as well. But we’ll see. I think the best we can hope for is that a bunch of them become so disillusioned with politics that they give up and crawl back under the rocks whence they came and leave the rest of us alone forever.
Bupalos
Trump isn’t really stupid and this idea that he could just not talk about Epstein is based on a near total misunderstanding of where his power comes from.
It’s like “McCarthy is so stupid, he should never have brought up Communism.”
jayne
So, I live in the part of NE where the Trump voters aren’t True Believers; they’re just either bigots or Mr Burns-style rich people, so the Epstein Files aren’t likely to affect their voting habits. Are people who live in MAGA-land seeing this turn real people against Trump, or have they just found a new shadow group to blame for “making” him kill the story?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jayne: It seems to keep on shifting; last weekend they were trying to claim Obama when he was 14 made up the whole thing in 1974, but forgot to mail it in to the WSJ last October.
Bupalos
@Gin & Tonic: I’d say “bad time to be in the prediction business,” but the definitions of “MAGA” and “revolt” leave holes large enough to drive a truck carrying the Delphic Oracle through.
Trump is going to lose a lot of power, that will flow to other entrepreneurial politicians. Whether there are bangs or whimpers involved in his decline from here, it’s locked in.
Bupalos
Some may, some may simply end up in another politician’s camp. Some other politician may come along that is better at capitalizing on the crisis of civic trust than Trump. Political energy isn’t created or destroyed. Trump has opened eyes that are unlikely to be quickly shut.
p.a.
Agree w G&T about locked-in MAGAts. Even the $$$ stuff: they look at cheating (others) and cheating the gubmint as just good bidness. Maybe some squish MAGAts? We just need them to sit out elections, not turn.
And don’t forget what grifters count on: the marks eventually realize, but don’t change. Admission of stupidity is HARD
Doug R
@Aziz, light!:
But even they can see all the pictures and videos that are from the before time-it’s at the edges of their understanding and it is making them MAD. And it’s trump adjacent people poking away so they’re torn and it’s making them more MAD. trump saying there’s nothing there is the cherry on top.
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah: Yup
lashonharangue
I wonder if the Republicans will refuse to sit on this committee too? ;-)
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: There’s especially no evidence that HILLARY Clinton was somehow grooming underage rape victims for Bill, which is where I recall the right-wing shit firehose taking this way back in 2016 when Epstein was still running free.
WTFGhost
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: And yes, that’s a hell of a good point. Keeping innocent people in the loop, maybe because they’ve made relatively small investments in a hedge fund, well, that would make it look more legit.
@Gvg: Agreed as well.
Paul in KY
@Gloria DryGarden: Bill Clinton, on his worst day, is 200 times better than TACO.
Gloria DryGarden
@Paul in KY: 500times. I’m just agreeing with you, bigly
Gloria DryGarden
@Shalimar: thank you I do agree. Someone else was bringing him up. It feels like comparison to both sides something.
The current guy, there is no comparison tk anyone