\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
Donald Trump is not worried about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Please don\u2019t put in the newspaper that he is worried. In a post yesterday evening, the president wrote: \u201cHouse Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it\u2019s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics.\u201d He added that \u201cthe House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON\u2019T CARE! All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which point is that, exactly? Rather than any focused political message, Trump offered a meandering, repetitive list of 11 things, including the economy and affordability (\u201cwhere we are winning BIG!\u201d Trump wrote). Not long ago, this guy was considered one of the most gifted sloganeers in American political history.<\/p>\n
Endorsing the House vote is strange, given that Trump could simply release the files himself, but despite his attempts to downplay it, this is a big concession. Trump has given in only after his repeated attempts to derail the release have failed. In changing course, however, Trump opens himself up to new political risks\u2014and shows why he\u2019s such a terrible political ally for House Republicans.<\/p>\n
Until this weekend, the White House had spent the past few months doing everything it could to stifle conversation about the files. In February, it dramatically delivered huge binders of info to several influencers, which turned out to just be information that was previously public. When that didn\u2019t quiet interest, the Justice Department announced in July that there was nothing to see here. Later that month, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein\u2019s convicted accomplice in sex crimes, who also assured him that there was nothing to see here. Shortly after that, she was inexplicably moved to a cushier federal prison. (Trump declined on Friday to rule out a pardon for Maxwell.)<\/p>\n
As recently as last week, the Trump administration was reportedly convening high-level meetings in the White House Situation Room\u2014including with Blanche, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel\u2014to discuss the files. They reportedly summoned Republican Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who supports the files\u2019 release, to discuss her position. The president also instructed the Justice Department to investigate Epstein\u2019s ties to prominent Democrats, but this weak deflection only underscored his own close connections.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s attempts to twist the arms of Republican representatives flopped\u2014not just with his confirmed GOP frenemy Thomas Massie of Kentucky, but with those whose political identity is almost entirely derived from the MAGA movement and closeness to Trump, such as Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Trump attacked Greene on Friday, calling her \u201cwacky\u201d and promising to support a 2026 primary challenge in Georgia \u201cif the right person runs.\u201d Greene was once considered a possible Trump 2024 running mate; now she\u2019s speaking out about how his rhetoric has inspired bomb and death threats against her. (To be fair, he\u2019s reportedly done worse to an actual running mate.)<\/p>\n
Until evidence of Trump\u2019s connections to Epstein became harder to avoid, some people in the administration viewed the Epstein files as a useful political attack\u2014something to wink at but not take seriously. Like the long-awaited GOP replacement to the Affordable Care Act, juicy Epstein revelations were most politically beneficial if they never actually emerged. Thus, Bondi could say that she had the Epstein client list on her desk and then, months later, say that it never existed. Vice President J. D. Vance tweeted in 2021, \u201cRemember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don\u2019t talk about it.\u201d Now he just doesn\u2019t talk about it.<\/p>\n
When Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna started collecting signatures to force a vote on releasing the files, the White House may have assumed that its political allies didn\u2019t really believe their own talking points about the Epstein files either. But Boebert, Greene, and Nancy Mace signed the petition and couldn\u2019t be bullied to back down. Perhaps Greene, who once dabbled in QAnon, really did believe in a massive conspiracy of pedophiles in power; the Epstein emails don\u2019t exactly quell those concerns. Maybe those who broke with Trump believe that their constituents want the files released. (Poll data show Americans as a whole do.) Whatever their motivations, Republicans who disobey Trump are taking a real political risk.<\/p>\n
Then again, so are Republicans who stick with him. Trump asked most rank-and-file Republicans to do him a favor by opposing the release. Massie pointed out last week that this could be an enduring black mark, telling CNN: \u201cWhat are you gonna do in 2028 and 2030 when you\u2019re in a debate either with a Republican or a Democrat and they say, \u2018How can we trust you? You covered up for a pedophile back in 2025.\u2019\u201d Yet by changing his own position, Trump has now hung them out to dry.<\/p>\n
Trump being Trump, and politics being politics, this is likely not the last word. Rhetorical support and actual compliance are not the same thing, and Trump left himself some wiggle room by stipulating that he supports the Oversight Committee receiving \u201cwhatever they are legally entitled to.\u201d But he does seem to be in a quandary. If he tries to prevent some information from being released, he will lend more credence to claims of a cover-up and extend a story he wishes to cut short. Yet Trump has presumably been so eager to block the release up until now for some reason, even if we can only speculate about what it is; what\u2019s become public so far is already damaging for him, among others. Trump is a bad ally to members of Congress, but he may be hurting himself too.<\/p>\n
Related:<\/p>\n
Here 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 Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani \/ The Atlantic. Source: Nathaniel S. Butler \/ NBAE \/ Getty.<\/p>\n Why Can\u2019t I Just Watch Sports on Television?<\/p>\n By Stephanie Hayes<\/p>\n If you, like me, are a fan of the Knicks, you probably caught last night\u2019s game against the Heat on Prime Video. But if you want to see them play Miami again on Monday, you\u2019ll need the streaming service MSG+ (at least, if you\u2019re living in New York and lack cable). That\u2019ll get you a bunch of games this season, including their December matchup against the Spurs, but you\u2019ll also need Peacock if you intend to watch them play the Pistons in January. Oh, and if you\u2019re keen for some Christmas Day basketball, you\u2019ll have to find a service that gets you ESPN or ABC. This is, to state what every sports fan knows in her heart to be true, unbelievably stupid.<\/p>\n Read the full article.<\/p>\n More From The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n Culture Break<\/p>\n Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Joseph Nettis \/ FPG \/ Archive Photos \/ Getty; Jeffrey Sylvester \/ FPG \/ Archive Photos \/ Getty.<\/p>\n Read. Anika Jade Levy\u2019s debut novel, Flat Earth, captures what it feels like to try to become an artist right now, Bekah Waalkes writes.<\/p>\n Watch. Saturday Night Live\u2019s memorable weekend sketch (streaming on Peacock) tackled what happens when embracing AI ends up disappointing Grandma, Michael Tedder writes.<\/p>\n Play our daily crossword.<\/p>\n Rafaela Jinich 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. Donald Trump is not worried about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Please don\u2019t put in the newspaper that he is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[4659,19496,81,8878],"class_list":{"0":"post-34205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-allies","9":"tag-epsteinfiles","10":"tag-trump","11":"tag-turns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34205","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=34205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n