\n<\/p>\n
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.<\/p>\n
In his first term, President Donald Trump was assiduous in courting his base of committed supporters, often at the expense of voters who were persuadable. Those decisions helped lose him the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
Trump isn\u2019t doing much more to reach out to the center in his second term, but he is more willing to snub his core backers. In recent weeks alone, he has flouted his longtime claims of being anti-war by joining an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran; dropped his demand that Ukraine make concessions and worked to supply it with weapons against Russia; endured an acrimonious breakup with his high-profile, deep-pocketed pal Elon Musk; and used his One Big Beautiful Bill Act to slash entitlements, which he had claimed he\u2019d never do.<\/p>\n
Each of these has brought grumbling from subsets of his coalition, but none has been so sustained as the backlash over the administration\u2019s reversal on releasing the so-called Epstein files. Now some of Trump\u2019s most ardent backers are angry at him for purportedly hiding information, and he, in turn, is lashing out at them. \u201cThe Radical Left Democrats have hit pay dirt, again!\u201d he wrote in a lengthy Truth Social missive this morning. \u201cTheir new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this \u2018bullshit,\u2019 hook, line, and sinker.\u201d Thinking about why this schism has emerged, and whether it will last, is helpful for understanding Trump\u2019s political appeal and future.<\/p>\n
What exactly these files might contain is not clear. One theory is that they include a list of famous men for whom Epstein, the late financier and sex offender, procured underage girls for sex. (Epstein\u2019s 2019 death in a federal jail in New York City was ruled a suicide, but public doubts about its circumstances have persisted ever since.) Although Epstein had many famous friends, some of whom flew on his plane or visited his private island, no obvious evidence that such a client list exists has emerged.<\/p>\n
But interest in the files has been whetted largely by Trump and his allies. Before entering the government, FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, both spread dark rumors about cover-ups related to Epstein and demanded the release of the names of his associates. Trump said during the campaign that he would publish materials related to Epstein\u2014though in retrospect, his hesitation to fully commit during a June 2024 interview is conspicuous. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the Epstein client list was \u201csitting on my desk right now to review.\u201d Now her Justice Department says it doesn\u2019t exist. Trump claims he can\u2019t believe anyone is still talking about the story.<\/p>\n
There are a few reasons this story has managed to stick in Trump\u2019s side in a way others have not. The first is that, unlike many of the other conspiracy theories propounded by Trump and his allies, questions about Epstein\u2019s cause of death and what secrets the government might be keeping are acceptable in polite company. Like Lee Harvey Oswald\u2019s murder by Jack Ruby, the death of a man connected to so many powerful people just seems weird, even if it was actually suicide. In a recent Economist\/YouGov poll, 79 percent of Americans support releasing all the Epstein documents. Two-thirds believe the government is covering up evidence about Epstein. A separate YouGov poll found that 39 percent of Americans believe Epstein was murdered, 40 percent aren\u2019t sure, and only 20 percent believe he killed himself. And Democrats are eager to fan the flames, this week forcing House Republicans to take a vote on releasing the files. (The GOP majority voted it down.)<\/p>\n
Second, the administration\u2019s behavior indicates that officials are hiding something, though probably not a client list. Good reasons may exist not to release all of the materials: For example, they likely contain privileged grand-jury information. They may include witnesses who testified confidentially. Very clearly, information about underage victims of sex crimes is involved.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s frenzied insistence that there\u2019s nothing to see suggests that there are secrets he\u2019d like to keep. The men were, by Trump\u2019s account, pals for a time\u2014and he was well aware of Epstein\u2019s reputation. \u201cI\u2019ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,\u201d Trump told New York magazine in 2002. \u201cHe\u2019s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.\u201d This relationship makes him a bad messenger for dismissing the story, but no other official has the credibility with MAGA voters that he does.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the FBI released \u201cfull raw\u201d video from the jail where Epstein died, saying it showed that no one entered his area in the time around his death. But Wired reports that the video was neither raw nor full: It was edited to remove almost three minutes of footage, in the most interest-piquing splice since Watergate\u2019s 18-and-a-half-minute gap.<\/p>\n
Third, and perhaps most important, the questions about Epstein cut directly to the core of Trump\u2019s political appeal. Although many of his supporters (or should we say \u201cPAST supporters\u201d?) opposed military raids, like the Iran bombing, and support for Ukraine, their affection for him is not about policy. It\u2019s personal. His fundamental proposition to voters was: I will tell you what the other politicians refuse to tell you. That\u2019s why backers hailed his \u201cauthenticity\u201d and \u201chonesty,\u201d even though he was the most prolific liar to ever occupy the Oval Office\u2014no small feat.<\/p>\n
Trump has spent a decade telling Americans that they can\u2019t trust the government. He\u2019s said a \u201cdeep state\u201d of unelected officials is plotting against them and hiding information. He\u2019s told them they can\u2019t trust what they\u2019ve been told about vaccines, the John F. Kennedy assassination, or what they saw with their own eyes on January 6, 2021. Now Trump wants the nation to just trust a bunch of government officials without seeing evidence to back it up. (If it were true, as he claims, that the Epstein material is a hoax by government officials, you\u2019d think he\u2019d want to investigate that, as he has in far-less-credible instances.)<\/p>\n
His gambit might work. The power of polarization and affective partisanship is strong and tends to draw people back to their corners. Already, some of the MAGA media are moving on and falling in line. But even if the whole flap leaves only a small dent in Trump\u2019s armor, it reveals an irreconcilable conflict in his political identity. Running against power is a smart campaign trick, but once you\u2019re in office, you can\u2019t keep blaming others for things that the government does. The buck stops with you, whether you like it or not.<\/p>\n
Related:<\/p>\n
\nHere are three new stories from The Atlantic:<\/strong><\/p>\n Today\u2019s News<\/strong><\/p>\n Dispatches<\/strong><\/p>\n Explore all of our newsletters here.<\/em><\/p>\n Evening Read<\/strong><\/p>\n Sebastian Mast \/ Connected Archives<\/p>\n I Left My Church\u2014And Found Christianity<\/p>\n By Monty Bennett<\/p>\n For many Americans, gay marriage feels like a settled issue. For Southern Baptists and others who share their theology, the question of the legality of gay marriage is still open. In their view, political and theological opposition is the only possible Christian response to gay marriage, and continuing to challenge marriage equality is a moral duty. The Church they have shaped has no room for the alternative path that many gay Christians have found: not leaving our religion, but embracing our sexuality alongside our faith.<\/p>\n I grew up in conservative, evangelical churches. For my undergraduate degree, I attended Union University, a Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tennessee. I graduated in 2013, and in the years leading up to Obergefell I saw how the growing cultural acceptance of same-sex relationships was haunting Southern Baptist leaders.<\/p>\n Read the full article.<\/p>\n More From The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n Culture Break<\/p>\n Illustration by The Atlantic<\/p>\n Shop around. Once a place of utility, the supermarket is now an object of obsession, Ellen Cushing writes. What does your favorite grocery store say about you?<\/p>\n Get closer. Your friends make your life better, Adrienne Matei wrote in 2023. So why not turn them into your neighbors?<\/p>\n Play our daily crossword.<\/p>\n Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.<\/p>\n When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In his first term, President Donald Trump was assiduous in courting his base of committed supporters, often at the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1237,4447,81,1500],"class_list":{"0":"post-11174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-base","9":"tag-primed","10":"tag-trump","11":"tag-turn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n