The public response to Trump regarding the Epstein case is largely negative, characterized by frustration over perceived dishonesty and a strong demand for transparency from both Trump and the authorities involved. Many commenters express a deep desire for accountability and justice for the victims, feeling that powerful individuals are being protected at the expense of the truth. This has led to a sense of betrayal among some of Trump's supporters, who expected him to be an advocate against corruption but now question his motives.

Donald Trump

Government authorities

I feel like of all the scandals that Trump has been involved in, this one has the most sticking power. I don’t see it going away any time soon. Partly because this scandal involves crimes against children and secondly the scandal isn’t hard to understand.

Ya_No

This is good but not enough to end my thousand day dooming streak.

woatboat

Trump getting flak for finally, after half a decade, saying the truth about Epstein is darkly hilarious.

obsessed_doomer

To me the biggest sign of some fractures was Rasmussen went negative for him. Not by a lot. It was -2 or -3, but even Trump friendly pollsters show him going negative.

panderson1988

The only thing that can realistically split his MAGA base.

ageofadzz

The risk here for Trump is that this is hitting one of his most vulnerable voting blocks, the conspiratorial fringe that don't traditionally vote, but have been activated these past few years by Trump's fervent anti-establishment message. These are not folk who are reliable Republican voters (which is why they don't tend to turn out for the midterms, only when Trump is on the ballot), so there's a significant risk for Trump these these folk return to being non-voters.

Bunny_Stats

Trump covering up the Epstein files, sending more aid to Ukraine, inflation continuing to go up. Boy this trump guy is seeming more and more like a radical left woke globalist communist democrat every day lol.

But actually that’s what you need to tell your maga family to convince them to get out of the cult. That’s what’s gonna hurt his popularity the most. People who hate all the crap he’s doing this term already hate him. But if his own cultists start to wake up and turn on him that’s when he’s really doomed. Seems unlikely but this is how you convince them. Use their own thought process against them rather than arguing with them about ICE or the big beautiful bill or whatever.

tresben

Yougov has a fuckton of different sponsors. Economist (Yougov) and Yougov are not the same thing as far as poll aggregators go. Nate adds them both. Economist Yougov is a weekly poll while that one is monthly. Economist Yougov just released a new poll today that Nate hasn't added yet. It's still -11 for RV and -14 for Adults. So RV stayed the same, and lost -3 with adults.

https://preview.redd.it/lhizvvbxt1df1.png?width=922&amp;format=png&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=4eba9f5c89177cb2b6884001bd1985c20fc31fd9

Also, you forgot about Morning Consult.

Alastoryagami

Trafalgar are furiously working to produce a Trump +11 approval poll right now

sly_cooper25

MAGA is getting back in line slowly on this. That said these type of things will cause some support to shed. I'm curious if Trump net approval will be below 40 by end of year

drtywater

I think it will temporarily move the needle, like so many Trump scandals do. But then the right wing propaganda machine kicks in to deflect and distract. Trump is already blaming Biden for the Epstein files, dangling it like fresh meat on a hook, just waiting for his vast propaganda network to take the bait. He’s going to try and convince everyone the Epstein files were all fake. Tough sell I know but he’s done similar before. 
The cult mind is difficult to untangle. 
To admit that they’re wrong would be an existential crisis for them. It’s not like they view the world scientifically, where if a hypothesis or theory is proven wrong, those ideas are dropped. They have to constantly justify their beliefs by concocting more conspiracies. “Beliefs” are an end to themselves. They don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change so it doesn’t exist. They believe Trump won the 2020 election so he did. 
No amount of contradicting reality will convince them they’re wrong. 
To help prove their beliefs they are trying to eliminate anyone and anything that is capable of contradicting their beliefs. 
Cuts to science, rewriting history, attacking news organizations and individual journalists who speak the truth etc. etc. All so they can live in their bubble of false reality. 
If it was just a few thousand people, it wouldn’t be a big problem. Unfortunately it’s at least a third of the population of the entire country. It’s like a cancer that’s metastasized and is probably going to kill the patient, aka the United States.

MidnightMiik

This was the most predictable event ever. His sycophants spent a decade ginning up conservatives over Epstein and the minute they are handed the keys and put in positions of power to actually do something about it they realize their vast conspiracy they have been spinning for over a decade really isn’t that and the truth as usual is just boring or worse their boss and/or prominent and powerful conservatives are on their too.

Southern_Jaguar

It's sure weird how the polling is getting so much less accurate now that Trump is defending pedophilia. 🤔

River&gt;Village

DataCassette

Why did you leave off the Morning Consult poll? [https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1944842994357821675](https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1944842994357821675)

Trondkjo

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There’s a reason to think that the information is being withheld or has been destroyed because it has people on it that are guilty of raping children. 

We shouldn’t let them be unaccountable

RCA2CE

It’s just the ultimate insult to his base. He thought he can make them do a 180 on anything since he has forced them to so many times before with minimal issues. But this one could be too much.

promising the release of the files, his AG saying they were on her desk, saying they are currently redacting documents to protect victims. Giving every indication that there was about to be a big special day when the names of all the pedophiles in government and the corporate world would all come out. Getting everyone excited.

And then he tried to pivot it all in one day. No client list, no documents, Epstein killed himself, no charges, stop talking about it now. 

The worst part is they invited a bunch of alt right social media shitposters to the white house to receive special little binders. They took photos of it like they were mocking them.

Those binders only had publicly available information. That was so humiliating for those people. They were telling their followers that Trump himself was delivering the Epstein files to them. 

And it was literally like they were dogs and Trump was like “Hey, want a treat?” and held out his fist, they all approached him, wagging their tails, and he opens his hand and it’s just a rock. And he laughs at them.

Y0___0Y

Yeah, this is a great question! 

I believe that it all boils down to how much the MAGA-sphere will NOT admit that they’re wrong. 

I’ll explain. Dating back to Qanon and “pizza gate” the narrative has been that there is a cabal of elite democrats harming children. The outrage was fomented for years, and the people understandably wanted justice. They have been told for almost a decade that once the good guys take office, they can finally expose the cabal and impose justice. The agreement was that in order to bust the Liberal Elites, they will need Agent Orange in the White House to break through the expansive government coverup. Now they are faced head on with two distinct and mutually exclusive options:

**They’ve been tricked into electing someone based on lies they’ve been told, playing them for fools**

OR

**They’re currently being lied to and this administration is part of the deep state coverup, playing them for fools.**

amanecdote

They don’t keep up with any of the policies being passed to screw them, but this topic doesn’t require any understanding of economics or foreign policy so they can grasp what’s going on.

vesselofwords

I had been confused during the campaign about why were the Epstein files being brought up so often. As someone who lives in reality I was well aware of the relationship between Trump and Epstein, so this just didn’t make any sense. 

I now realize that “releasing the Epstein files” was the coverup that allowed them to hide this reality, to preempt any potential attacks or stories from catching the interest of the voters. To keep it as background noise instead of having to counter the obvious problems of their relationship. 

But Epstein represents everything that MAGA claimed to hate, and keeping it in the forefront is now backfiring spectacularly. 

They will now have to find another way to gaslight MAGA about it: after a lot of flailing aimlessly “these files were created by the deep state, Obama, and Biden” seems to be what they are settling into.

Edgar_Brown

It’s because MAGA was built on top of QAnon, and QAnon believes that the “deep state” is a bunch of blood drinking, child graping, extremely wealthy Jews (among a bunch of other wild views). They think that Epstein was involved with child sex trafficking for those people in the “deep state” and Trump has spent years fanning the flames of this conspiracy, along with other conspiracies that are part of Q. They also believe that Hitler was not a bad guy because he was just trying to eliminate the blood drinking, child molesting Jewish cabal. So basically, the people who are the foundation of the MAGA movement, being QAnon believers, voted for Trump with the expectation that he would blow the lid off allllll kinds of conspiracies and thus confirm that they, the QAnon believers, really are smarter than everyone else because they caught on and others didn’t — to be clear, it’s never been about protecting children; it’s about stroking their own egos. Understand that a lot of QAnon believers have their entire personalities tied into the conspiracy. Being told now that evidence doesn’t exist to support their conspiracy, and nothing will even be released for them to see for themselves, makes Trump a part of the cover up conspiracy himself. QAnon is always going to supersede MAGA, because QAnon **made** MAGA in the first place.

CremePsychological77

Like all things like this, give it 2 weeks and everyone will memory holes that they ever cared and fall in behind Trump. For MAGA it isn't, and has never been about principles. It's always been about *whatever Trump wants*. Maybe a few will peel off but I highly doubt it. Just a couple of weeks and everyone will be pretending this is what they believed all along.

jefftickels

The right has slowly dropped information on how Obama, Clinton, and many democrats were involved with this. They released flight logs and this was finally gonna be the “gotcha!!!” Moment.

And now it’s a hoax created by Clinton and Obama and nothing actually exists? The right really fucked up leaning into something so hard that’s going to get the people who release it killed because this literally involves the worlds richest, most powerful and famous people and world leaders.

bigmac22077

The right wing media sphere and even his followers in Congress realize that he no longer has coattails and are starting to turn on him. Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Ben Shapiro, MTG, and plenty more have been way more vocal the last few weeks in opposition to him. Right wing media owns half the voters in our country

rendeld

It gives them an out without having to speak against policy. It's an easy hard line to take since everyone knows how horrible Epstein was and they have long been promised this list. They all thought the list would expose liberals. Now that Trump and team refuse to expose it, it is showing some very large cracks in what MAGA expected vs reality and they don't know how to handle learning the truth.

That said - WELCOME THEM! Please don't shut them down on the off chance this is the thing that finally lets them see the light about this administration. Yes, it is ridiculous that this is what is would take. Yes, dear goodness, how did nothing else get them there first. Yes, we can forever being utterly pissed that they voted for him. But give them a soft landing to be able to start to peel back the layers of shit they fell for and maybe, just maybe, they can be free of their cult.

Independent_Fox8656

It's because these people are conspiracy theorists who don't trust the government, but they trusted Trump to be an outsider who would destroy the corrupt establishment. That's why they cheer every time he breaks a norm or rule - they *want* him to burn it all down. 


But now it looks like he's protecting the wealthy donor establishment people. MAGA is delusional, so this is actually a huge surprise for them and they can't believe he isn't releasing the files like he said he would. 

Kamekazii111

They’re splitting because they’re all so close to realizing that he’s in the files

FreeDependent9

It's because the MAGA movement is built primarily on a base of for-profit conspiracy theorists.  There are always dragons to slay because they have to keep the money train on the tracks.

JKlerk

The thing to understand about Trump supporters that confused people is that they're effectively single issue voters for an issue that basically does not exist. Remember that Trump supporters believe things not because they have rationally concluded that they are true, but rather that they *want* to believe them to be true. 

What Trump supporters *want* to believe is that the Dems are secretly a cabal of evil reptilian pedophiles. This is a very reassuring belief (despite being generally untrue) for a lot of reasons. For one, it's simple. Disagreeing with someone on tariffs is complicated and hard and they don't like complicated and hard things. Another reason they like to believe it is that it removes any moral obligation to compromise with the Dems. Why would you compromise on healthcare reform with someone who abuses children? It also is a powerful social stigma, which they abuse to build support for their base. If you do anything but vote for Trump, youre voting for child abusers, in their eyes. It justifies any abhorrent behavior towards your political opponents because they're Bad People. Lying about dog-eating Haitians seems like small potatoes compared to what happened on Little Saint James Island.

Note that they've indulged in this fantasy before 2019, when the Epstein news first broke. Pizzagate goes back to 2016. It's a major basis for Trump's initial electoral success. The Deep State as a vague Bad Guy that be what ever person or whatever (((Persons))) you want them to be is a powerful electoral motivator. It's a blank slate you can put your whole world view into. So you can imagine how thrilled Trump mustve been when the year before he was due to run for re-election, news breaks that there actually was a cabal of wealthy sexual predators and they killed a guy to cover it up and there's a list out there of the people he was blackmailing. It was the dream. The only thing that could spoil it for him is if Trump himself or his major campaign donors were on it.

But nobody could predict 2020. Between the Pandemic and the Floyd protests causing social unrest, it was a hard time to get people to vote for the incumbent. His supporters still existed and still believed that the Deep State was running the show. And now they stole an election because obviously nobody would vote for a predator (another convenient feature of believing in the Deep State). That justified the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. And that pushed them to believe in QAnon. And so during the entire Biden administration, that anger and delusion boiled over into them showing out to win 2024 by an even bigger margin than they won in 2016. They wanted revenge. They wanted to see the Deep State finally suffer. Trump, of course knew this. he answered Yes when FOX news asked him if he'd release the Epstein files. JD Vance went on Theo Von and said we needed to release the report. They convinced themselves that by voting for Trump they were buying a deal to finally expose the Deep State. They were shifting their stances on every other political issue for this one wish, and they didn't even get it.

The generous interpretation of what Trump and his staff wrote a check that they couldn't cash. They actually believed that the evidence they were promising was real and could realistically be shared and the Biden administration just Wouldn't. Now they're stuck taking a PR hit and hoping people will just Move On. A more realistic and cynical expectation is that they knowingly lied to the voters to win an election. They got paid up front in 2024 and now that they already got in office, they don't need to fulfill any of their campaign promises. Trump basically said "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a cheeseburger today" and the voters fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Sucks to suck. Either of these interpretations would still be cause for Trump voters to turn on him and any GOP politicians aiding and abetting him. 

The more salacious interpretation is that Trump and/or major GOP campaign donors (or just billionaires with bribe money) are on the list. paying him to cover it up and he's doing it or possibly even doing it to save his own ass. This is impossible for me to prove either way, but if you're a trump supporter that's upset with the lack of Epstein information and you're prone to believing crazy things, you're going to at least consider believing it.

**tl;dr** They are single issue voters and that single issue is the Deep State and now he's not delivering on it.

viewless25

Kind of like prison. 

There are a lot of bad people in prison. You could have everything in common with them. But if you're in there because you're a pedophile, those bad people will turn on you and kill you.

BeerGogglesFTW

Because they could justify or ignore all the other hideous shit by hiding behind the idea they were protecting kids from abusers, exposing abusers. That justification is crumbling. Now they have to admit there was nothing there the whole time and they were used and manipulated for years, or they have to admit they’ve been supporting a pedo the whole time.

Shobed

They are realizing Donald Trump has been the deep state all along. He is the pedo, he is the elite.

Striking_Economy5049

Even the dumbest MAGA nut can follow this sleaze ball scandal. And what would Jesus say about elites like Trump getting it on with under age girls? All the right wing talkers and Donald himself have been harping about it for years. Now after Trump becomes POTUS again, Donnie has decreed that there is nothing to it and now demands silence. Once again Dumb Donald has made his boot lickers look like fools. Maybe a growing number of his voters are beginning to realize that Trump is lying most of the time and he consistently shits allover everybody. Our psychopath #47. God Help Us.

SparksFly55

The answer is Maga was largely born out of Qanon's fracturing and their sole focus was on the deep state pedophile vampire class of society

ninjadude93

Even if the Epstein files are never released, it will never hurt Trump. Remember during the campaign, president Trump insulted Admiral McCain for being shot down. Remember also the Hollywood Access tapes. Any other candidate would have been completely wiped out by those incidents. After a couple of weeks it was nothing didn't hurt Trump at all. Going to be the same with the Epstein files. So a few weeks from now will be talking about tariffs or interest rates or the Ukraine war.

ThickGur5353

I like the timing! Personally Ive always believed Trump was in the Epstein files. Then Musk tweeted that Trump was, in fact, all up in there and reignited interest in the subject. Under pressure, Bondi released the botched video footage from BOP without any other documents and now saying the documents don’t exist. What??! huh?! 

His whole inner circle is grossly incompetent and their handling of the Epstein situation has made that fact crystal clear!!!

BlondeMare

Because it's not a controversial situation to regular people (radical politics or not).  The only people who have anything to worry about are those with money and connections because it was Epstein.

Watching two people take the hit after getting to live an extravagant, decadent life for decades while they exploited innocent, vulnerable children is just unconscionable.  Remember that these are the same radical conservatives and conspiracy people who were in on 'pizza gate' and were after the Clintons and others on being child sex criminals.

Knowing that hundreds, if not thousands, of wealthy privileged assholes diddled kids for fun sexual entertainment and are getting away with it is going to rankle people badly.  And nobody is buying that we don't have more information on who these monsters are.

And then you have Trump specifically, who not only is probably on that list himself, but was elected on the idea that he would "drain the swamp."

As for if it will "go away", well, probably.  Because I have no faith in our attention span or getting politicians to own up to anything anymore.  But I'd be very happy to be wrong.

Drakengard

They're fundamentally idiots. So of course something this stupid is the only way they would break from Trump.

eSpiritCorpse

Nothing so far has made these cultists leave dear leader. I’ll bieve it when it happens.

rzaroch_36

Since Epstein died they've been pushing the idea that the Dems had him killed to prevent this list from being handed out.  And Trumpula has said time and again that the list is real and he would release it as soon as he could.

Well, now he's saying it ain't real and people should shut up about it, which is very odd considering he spent sevenish years saying it WAS real.

ERedfieldh

There is no upside for them to believe that this one is worth it. 

Even if you’re the most hardened, cynical MAGA sycophant, part of you still feels a certain way when you see a baby ripped from its mothers arms while the mother fights against armed masked goons to get her baby back. Being MAGA isn’t about not feeling that, being MAGA is about feeling there are other things more important than that. In that case, MAGA would feel that getting immigrant freeloaders out of the country try is worth the human suffering that ICE is deliberately causing. 

“Shouldn’t have come here in the first place,” etc. 

The same could be true for most of Trump’s cruelty. Kicking kids off food stamps? Their parents need tough love to learn how to provide for their own families instead of relying on government. Ending public school funding? Teachers unions have it too good as it is, and I’d prefer to send my kid where I can have more of a say in their education. 

You can do this with nearly any cruel MAGA policy. 

But what could *possibly* be the upside of “oh, shit, my hero president might have actually raped children”? There’s no other side to that for them to believe makes it worth it.

seancurry1

Because many are Qanon, and they bought into the pizza parlor pedo ring story 100%, and thought the Epstein list would expose all the Pedo’s. Problem is that Trump is the real pedo and exposing the list would demonstrate that.

Huckleberry199

It really has been like ......... "I did not mind it much when trump's leopards eat MY FACE but I really felt cheated when he just now let the leopards eat the Epstein Files"..

1805trafalgar

Its the crank and education realignment of the parties.

College educated and crazy people used to be on both parties.  Now they are basically college educated to dems and crazies to repubs.

The crazies (anti vax, flat earths, flourides, epsteins, chem trails) vote republican because they validate their crazy.  Now they arent validating it.

HumorAccomplished611

probably because it's pretty obvious he's guilty AF and the have to admit they're OK with the cockroaches bangin kids.

_AceOfHearts

I think some followers didn't like a lot of things that he has been doing.  This is the first thing if they can
dismiss him on and still save face.

procrastinatorsuprem

They're not well-educated and/or not moral people to whom conspiracy theories matter more than the health and welfare of their brothers and sisters in humanity. The bigotry of conservatism is a scourge on humanity, which by definition excludes enormous numbers of human beings from the right to exist.

You cannot reason with a tiger while your head is in its jaws. The conservative political project is to create a white, theocratic ethnostate.

the_calibre_cat

The very people (Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, et al.) telling us that the Epstein files are a dud, have spent years telling us everything from “it’s a Biden coverup” to “I literally have the files on my desk, and they’re incriminating as fuck.” They’ve been calling fouls on the “deep state” over the Epstein files for ages - that was the argument for getting them into their jobs in first place, because the ones with actual credentials and experience were already compromised by the deep state - so now that they are the state, it’s damn near impossible to deflect to any other group, especially after expressly taking accountability for them after getting their positions. 

The Epstein conspiracy has been the biggest conspiracy on the right for a few years now. That conspiracy energy is a not insignificant part of what got Trump elected. You’ve got a lot of folks who’ve made fighting for the release of the Epstein files central to their influencing or even their identities. Even for MAGA cultists, this is apparently too much of a pivot. Ironically, it probably would have been easier for the Trump admin to spin GOP names on the list than denying that it even exists.

chronberries

I remain unconvinced. He can tell them anything, and they will cheer for him. If it all comes out, he will just claim that child grape is perfectly reasonable and they are allowed to do it and it’s legal now so go away and his base will cheer

ironafro2

The split didn't last long.  Over at / r / Conservative, there were like 3 threads about this yesterday, they're all gone now, replaced with like 5 different threads about Biden's Autopen Scandal whatever TF that is.  Fox News has dropped the story from their homepage.  The message went out for MAGA to stop talking about Epstein and they are complying with their marching orders.

FuguSandwich

The project of conservatism is an elaborate permission structure allowing for the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children, but some of its followers prefer to compartmentalize. It’s bound to cause conflict eventually.

seigezunt

If Trump were on the list, his supporters would forgive him. What they can't forgive is him showing mercy towards their enemies.

Preaddly

It’s just taking longer for the dyed-in-the-wool MAGA folks to fall back in line with what Der Leader says. Nothing more, nothing less. They’ll eventually all fall in line again…and even those who will stay mad about it forever with still ultimately vote for/support MAGA writ-large until Donald Trump is deceased. The cult is strong, immovable, &amp; give or take small handfuls here &amp; there, irredeemable

Weak-Elk4756

DonOld is a kiddie diddler. Obviously he's not letting his best friends diddler list get leaked.

Extra-Monitor5743

I'm betting at least $1 that:

A. The average MICRH (Made In Chiiiiinna Red Hat) does not believe Trump is in there.

B. Even if Trump was in there, the average MICRH would write it off as a conspiracy.

C. The vast majority of the MICRHs are frotnjng at the mouth because they believe Obama, Clinton, Soros, Bezos, whatever other left-leaning boogeyman they revile is in there. They want that blood.

JimDee01

MAGA brain doesn't process negative data about dear leader. It goes straight to /dev/null

They just need a minute while they get re-aligned by their handlers. Something something pedophelia being ok now.

beerhiker

I would suspect that a child rapist would be careful about keeping incriminating documents. Such documents as exist may be brief, abbreviated, somewhat cryptic, and certainly not link identifiable individual names with specific underage victims and lurid details of the crimes. Apparently the FBI has had access to whatever files exist for years and whatever charges could be made based on the 'files' have likely been made. If video tapes of sex acts exist, they would have been used as evidence in trials, which has not happened. 

I would also suspect that Trump and  his minions have purposefully used the Epstein pedophile panic to anger their supporters and raise funds and engender animus at the other party who has been accused of being the 'pedophile protection party'. This tact is nice when you are out of power, but when you and your administration actually have possession of the same files things get a bit dicey or different. Then you become the 'pedophile protection party'. 

This is the moment in time when the pedal hits the metal, the rubber hits the road. It's the put up or shut up moment. The guy who ran on the idea that the deep state had evidence of horrible pedophile activities and was protecting the guilty has transitioned into the idea that Trump himself has evidence of horrible pedophile activities and is protecting the guilty, which may arguably include himself  - and Trump has some explaining to do. 

Me, I have popcorn and a soft drink, and I'm settling in for the show.

konqueror321

Believing that everything they were doing to hurt other people was the greater good to get to the bottom of the government corruption with the Epstein situation.

With that gone, they're left feeling like bad people

Nillows

They thought they were going to bring down Bill and Hillary at last but “for some reason” Trump is covering up for them.

piney

Here's the thing for me: If you were Trump and you KNEW you weren't on that list, wouldn't you want it released to prove it? Yes, there's a lot of photos and videos of Epstein and Trump together, but that doesn't mean he's on the list. Why not release it to, if nothing else, prove his detractors wrong and give himself an easy win? His paradigm of pushing back as hard as he can might not work this time. Something about this controversy feels different. We'll see...

theUncleAwesome07

An underlying belief for MAGAs has always been that there is under the radar conspiracy by the "elites" against the average American with the system rigged against the interests of the normal, working person. Epstein puts a face on it.

rbremer50

I think it's like this: they want to see the report because they believe the report will include the names of all the Democrats they hate, and that it will not include Trump's name, therefore exonerating him.

There is an intense satisfaction they crave with this scenario being true, and they are pissed off they can't have that satisfaction.

SirCharlesEquine

Because deep down theres a subset of Trump cult who are basically good people, they know he’s a pig and a lying cheat but diddling teenagers is too much for even their cognitive dissonance.

pomod

I'll add to this if I can. It's an odd situation, up there with Trump's bigger scandals. For some reason the usual plays don't seem to be an option.




- Why not just release a fake or mostly-fake list? Put a bunch of dead Democrats on it, lawyer up against their next of kin, sling mud, call it a free speech issue, catch one or two guilty guys to make it all seem too complicated to parse, settle out of court in a year, if at all.




- Why not pick a scapegoat? Some Biden appointee lost the list!




- Why are there no leaks? Surely this is so much bigger than other issues where leaks have emerged. Whoever breaks the story is going down in history!




I can't make myself believe that this is the Biggest, Most Sophisticated Cover-up of All Time. These people always fuck up sooner or later. But, serious question, what other explanation is there?

GiantPineapple

This is a problem of the MAGA narrative. A portion of this narrative involves deep state cover ups of evil behavior on the part of the “elite.” MAGA members never generally see their own as part of this elite but anyone else can be lumped in more or less. 

This corruption is grounded in child abuse and satanism for many. This is part of the LGBTQ+ push back, as members of these communities are accused of grooming children for abuse by elites.

Jeffery Epstein is like a cornerstone of all this as the most famous child trafficker, and the public existence of his legal case and associated records is the public proof of the larger conspiracy.

Despite what some might say, they do not believe everything Trump says not many of them… Trump is actually playing into their suspicions and theories about the deep state and elite power which existed in various forms before him.

The theory of satan worshipping pedophile elites has been circling around for a long time and picked up a lot of steam post 9/11 online especially. It’s also just playing into society fears more generally and the natural curve of moral panics.

Go down this rabbit hole and *anyone* can potentially be captured and compromised by the elites, but many believed Trump was somehow immune which is why he could gesture towards taking down the deep state and their corrupt network—this is basically the core of QAnon. 

Now they’re denying a core conspiracy and for many this will mean that Trump too has been captured and is no longer intending to follow through on his promises to drain the swamp and root out the deep state. 

People are loyal to Trump because they identify with him. If he does something to shatter this identification then that’s where they can break with him. 

The fact that Trump has past association with Epstein can be ignored because he has undergone religious transformation allegedly. For those who believe in a “born again” ideology, sinners are allowed to redeem themselves and transform. 

For these people, Trump’s other actions around personal corruption are just him playing the game and fine. But the fact that he denies the elite pedophile ring is real may be a bridge too far for some.

justice_hager

Putin’s social media fleet is keeping the story alive because Trump has turned on him.

Shadraqk

For me, it shows the power of conservative media. For years, Biden not releasing the files made him a villain or hiding some huge conspiracy this was just something that couldn't be tolerated. It was just a black and white line that couldn't be crossed and we hated Biden, politicians for doing it.   Once Trump just said they don't exist, not long after Bondi saying they are on her desk, was a bridge too far.

chinmakes5

Republican/christians who voted for him find it more important to get justice for 10 year olds who were raped by men. Something the Bible Belt has stayed consistent on. They hate pedophiles more than the other choices.

GritNGrindNick

For about 2/3 of the cult, an Epstein file full of Democrat and business names they don’t like is vindication for the idiocy of pizzagate, satanic blood cults, etc.

The other 1/3 are the Opus Dei wing of the truly devout. They worship the cult leader. They would give up just about anything to please him. For them, Jesus is second to the orange stained one. As such, he can do no wrong.

Those two clashing makes for a powerful split.

wsrs25

MAGA has been a conspiracy cult around a supposed cabal victimizing children since at least 2017. Anything that made Trump look bad could be excused as either worth it to stop the pedos or a conspiracy of the pedophiles. MAGA media playing up the whole Epstein things as a product of this liberal deep state created an expectation that once Trump held all the cards the truth would be revealed. They were promised a big Perry Mason moment, even by members of Trump's admin and family and now he's saying this big reveal doesn't exist. I don't out much past MAGA, but it does look like he's been edging them on Epstein and had now denied their orgasm and that's the thing that's going to break them.

matttheepitaph

David French's op-ed today in the NYT does a pretty good job exploring this IMO:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/opinion/epstein-files-trump-maga.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WU8.iqrb.ZpjaAX6cG1Ry&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare

le_sacre

Part of their crazy cult from his last presidency was "exposing pedophiles" and "saving the children." Anyone remember the Qanon theory of the child s#x ring in the basement of that pizza parlor or whatever? They had all these emails to and from democrats that mentioned pizza which confirmed Hillary and whoever else were all in on it...this might be a holdover from some of that stuff. And some of them maybe want an easy off ramp out of the cult without having to admit they were duped.

Dry_Heart9301

My late Brother was hard core MAGA. For some reason he was most passionate about the pedophile thing. He was *sure* that Trump was going to expose all the Dem leaders as sadistic rapists and cannibals, then save all the children being held captive in Hollywood dungeons and sex houses. Maybe MAGA is pissed off because they really *wanted* to see the Democrats in Congress get arrested., tried and executed (not necessarily in that order).

honuworld

Why did Trump put true believers like Bongino and Patel in a position to fulfill their promise to release the Epstein files? Did Trump think they would have more credibility with MAGA when they came out and swept everything under the rug and assured MAGA that there’s nothing to see? If so, when did Trump tell them he needed them to cover it up? Before or after nominating them? This is one of just a few things that doesn’t quite fit the narrative. Does anyone have any insight to offer me?

grouch1980

Maybe they're finally realizing he only makes empty promises to get their vote, but then once he's in office, nothing happens. And what he does accomplish is not what he promised them. 
Slowly, they are seeing that he's just another millionaire cosplaying as a hero, as a screen for protecting other corrupt millionaires.
They thought he just hurt those they hated because he hated them too. But in reality he hates everyone who isn't of benefit to him. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. And will lash out at and hurt anyone who gets in his way. Even his own supporters.

AlienReprisal

Can anyone suggest a documentary or book or article that delves into the facts and timeline of events? I keep hearing about little tidbits that I’d never heard before, and I’m not read up on the subject enough to know if they’re bullshit or not.

The reason is because so many online people started their conspiracy/MAGA journey with the podesta emails and pi__@gate. That stuff was heavily related to Epstein and when he was arrested, it in a way confirmed that they weren't completely crazy -- a global PDF cabal can and does in fact exist. It is a core component of early online-MAGA folks. So they can't just let it go. Its very central to the online MAGA people

ConflictExtreme1540

Lot of em believe its a democrat ridden list and hes now part of the establishment protecting pedophile dems. They're completely oblivious to the fact that it certainly has both sides on it, but their dear leader is the biggest name on there

Seiyaru

These people are so fucking lame that this is what they’re the most worried about?

cmac92287

OMG.  I read 100+ comments and don't see a single one suggesting that this list doesn't exist!  Really could it possibly be that there was a list with any famous person on it and going through 2 or three administrations and not leak it?  I don't think so.  I think MAGA is drowning in their own excrement.  They fanned the flames of this conspiracy theory and now can't put it out.  They won't just say they talked it up just to get votes/clicks.   I guess there is always plausible deniability in "I don't know, I just heard..."

stoneman30

We know that there is a list.  We all believe this.  For neither side to release the list means that the list goes so deep on both sides.  The amount of power on the list must be astounding. 

There is probably 1-5 trillion of net worth on that list covering multiple countries, political affiliations and so forth.

Opie_the_great

My theory:

The group that doesn’t care about the list on some level believes Trump is on the list, and don’t want to risk the potential catastrophic damage to the Trump Regime.

The group that demand the list can be further split into 2 groups
First group. They genuinely stupidly naively believe Trump isn’t on it, and want to the list for further cement trump’s power.
Second group. They want the list but will pick and choose their targets - democrats and republicans whose the mouths still refuse the holstering of trump’s proud weapon against children and unwilling women.

Above is my theory, now here’s the fact.

THEY DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT CHILDREN”S WELLBEING.

SilverBuggie

They got all their deplorables to call every democrat a pedo en mass. Especially the strong tough patriotic truck guns guys who would tear down walls at the chance to prove their manhood by pummeling a pedo. Now their identity is in question. That’s selfish as hell too, yes. There should be many multiple issues that piss them off, but I guess we will take what we can get.

Cordogg30

His base only has 3 aspects left, his origin, people that hate immigrants from his first statement in 2015. People who "want war at home" actually executing the concentration camps and ICE, and Qanon people who got hooked into it from the anti pedophile  sphere. Protestants have a superiority complex over Catholics about child dillers.

He has wittled his base down to uneducated nonaguarian unemployed single cis white agnostic/catholic men that are unfit for military or police service. Basically "hobo sexuals" and "basement dwellers" The nazis in media are not even protecting him at this point. Podcaster bros have abandoned him.

zayelion

Idk these with political theatrics that already be. Now it do start looking like a tv show the moment trump said "are you still talking about epstein" and wonder if these last couple days are deliberate for a split and/or handing over influence over half (or way more or less) piece of maga followers and didn't trucker say some not that long before he got approached to run last election but wouldn't and couldn't cuz he that locked in with trump. Go like that with recording gear all setup not to handle it privately and talk. Is like movie with these plot twists but most likely to be a coincidence because overflow of events.

Sea-City-6068

The only reason his people are breaking is because they are heavily invested in the violence they believed was coming for *pedophiles* (anyone they were told not to like) and are realizing it's coming for people's grandmother's instead.

Trump 1.0 skirted the conspiracy theories. Trump 2.0 is riding the wave. They built this whole house of cards around Epstein and told their people they'd enact violence or arrest all of the people they were telling their people to hate. When it became clear that is not happening, their people became enraged that they don't get their violence.

Now, Trump could go out, kill a bunch of prominent Democrats, say they're on the list and his people would all be on board and all would be forgiven. 

But short of that, Trump has a problem on his hands. He's promised his people blood, and now he's giving them smoke.

ThePensiveE

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s because Republicans don’t really care about politics. A good portion believe it’s a top to bottom sham run by a coalition of self-interested pedophiles, and that Trump was the outsider who was going to drain that “swamp”. They didn’t care about economic policies, and they barely care about social policies - primarily in the outrage towards certain groups of people. 

All this time, people believed Trump was draining the swamp in real time. Appointing Patel, Bandi, and Hegseth were examples of getting rid of the deep state, they trusted those appointees to remove the swamp. 

Epstein was supposed to be the poster boy of the movement, imprison him and the whole swamp gets drained after his client list gets exposed to the world. So when, under the Trump admin, Epstein “kills himself”, Maxwell is imprisoned solely for trafficking to Epstein alone, there is no client list, no further arrests, and the FBI Director is saying there is no conspiracy - it’s probably a rude awakening for a lot of that base that got Trump elected.

It’s why there’s a divide, there are those who follow politics saying “well we knew all along trump was no better, but atleast he’s passing policies that are making the country better” and there are those who never voted before 2016 saying “trump is a liar and is sitting on the files”

Serious-Top7925

I think "rich people having sex with children on private islands" is a uniquely rare issue that cant be blamed on immigrants, lack of religion, or the poor. No one to blame but those rich and in power abusing it.

GangsterMilk62

It’s a conundrum they cannot reconcile with. 

If there’s no list, then they were lied to for years. If there is a list, then it’s being withheld because it almost-definitely has Trump’s name on it, making him no better (in their eyes) than the pedo-boogeyman they’ve accused the left of being for years. 

They may not be ready to admit it if the latter is the case, but it’s also an argument they can’t blab their way out of like they have with almost every other Trump scandal thus far

peskyghost

Because of now almost forgotten Q cult. Many came to MAGA from there, and for them it was the most important issue they voted on.

field_operator

MAGA likes to accuse anyone they don’t like of pedophilia, so now that dear leader is being wishy washy and looking very guilty means they can’t use that moral defense anymore. 

LordModlyButt

For a significant chunk of Trump's base, the idea that he was fighting this vast pedophilic cabal was the entire reason they supported him. Take that away - whether by providing incontrovertible evidence of Trump himself being a pedophile, proving the cabal doesn't exist, or even just seemingly covering for the cabal - and they don't have anything left.

Best case, they realize how Trump (or more accurately, QAnon) tricked them into standing behind him as he undermined democracy. Worst case, they go all January 6 on it, only this time Trump himself and the FBI are the targets.

MorganWick

The tax bill got passed.  For many on the right this was the only reason to put up with Trump. Now they want to neutralize him.  Best way is to distract him and his base with the things they love most.  Salacious conspiracies about the rich and powerful.

tag8833

My take...

Cognitive dissonance can build quite a bit before and still hold.
But at some point the contradictions become too great.
The borderline where this happens is fuzzy, and it often comes from a minor thing that has special symbolic weight, the "straw that broke the camels back". I'd argue tarrifs and some the visible cruelty of the immigration policies probably carry more weight, but either alone are easy enough to carry. The two together are doable, but this third, rather minor issue, is "clear" enough that it allows people to break with their past support.

I'd also suggest that something in Trumps own skill set has changed. There's been a good deal of buzz lately that Trumps really does see his survival of the Pennsylavanian assassination attempt as a sign that he is "chosen". I think many people would be willing to give Trump the cynical pass for this if Trump played it the way he normally does, with a wink, but such cynicism does not play as well if you start thinking of yourself as "chosen" and it's led him to stonewall, something that only fans the flames of doubt.

fourjay

The only explanation is that they truly didn’t think he was on it. They need to realize that there exists a tape of trump raping a child while she sobs.

TR_abc_246

Here is the thing about playing the dog whistle and trafficking in conspiracy theories. You don't control the response. What may work in your favor now could turn on you very fast. That is what is happening to Trump. He played the Dems eat babies bullshit. The people that believe that shit, really believe it. Now that it appears to be completely false, they need someone to chew on. That person is now Trump.

Lestranger-1982

It is NOT causing a break with the administration conservative policies by any stretch of the imagination.  It is causing some of us to question why the normal transparency is being quashed.  I can only imagine that full disclosure is so onerous that it is better to deny than to disclose regarding the stability of governments on the world stage.  I hope that is not the case, but I believe it to be true.

mrjcall

They're taking it personal because they felt that every lie before this one was him lying to the libs and not to them. This time he's lying to everyone including them. In essence they hate that he's treating them like he treats the libs.

dcjoker

In the maga sphere, the one point that is made about reality that actually is much closer to reality than the political fluff we're given everyday is this idea that there are highly advanced dark networked groups of powerful people who are essentially using these networks to get what they want, whether it's new legislative directions, kids, drugs, assassinations, etc. 

Where they fuck up is assuming this is what causes every bad situation and that everything is orchestrated by them, which isn’t the case. But dark networks among the elite have existed for thousands of years and they continue to exist, only now with better tech and easier ways to link up and coordinate with other dark networks, making the whole thing more global than local. 

So when they see Epstein getting shut down like this, that's a huge signal that Trump is a part of it, or at least may be a part or his team may be. Either way, it's a bad look and for maga people this is a clear sign of absolute betrayal.

Sticking it to trans people and kicking immigrants out is a nothing burger to them, but being a part of a cancerous group that precludes us from progressing? That's everything to them and there's a lot of validity to that since it is 100 percent real...it's characterized in such a backwards cartoonish way by these voters, it comes off as too cheesy and fake and that's because it's deeply woven into falsehoods. But the core of it is real and it does need to be addressed if we want actual changes in our border security and a restoration of democracy.

Telkk2

It's literally because they are conspiracy theorists that dont have the critical thinking skills to evaluate information. Trump fed into their Epstein conspiracies for brownie points, and then he let them down by not releasing the files

Awesomeman360

President Donald Trump is facing backlash from his supporters over the lack of transparency regarding the investigations into the late Jeffrey Epstein. This controversy has caused fractures within the Republican base and raised concerns about transparency in governance.

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