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Good morning,
The White House has really stepped in it with this Jeff Epstein mess, huh? I don’t want to re-litigate the whole saga as we spoke about it at length last week, but since then this fracture within his base has only deepened and President Trump is looking increasingly vulnerable.
To recap, on Friday a new feud erupted at the DOJ when Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, apparently threw a fit and didn’t go to work, with his camp leaking items to the media about how the whole mess was the fault of AG Pam Bondi, and Bongino was considering resigning from the FBI unless Trump fired Bondi. Influential voices on the right like Megyn Kelly then came to Bongino’s defense, saying Bondi needed to go—but of course failing to mention that Bongino and his boss, Kash Patel, both signed off on the release of the most recent Epstein memo as well as a CCTV video of Epstein’s prison cell door that was released with a minute of material missing. Nothing says “this should quell the conspiracy theorists” like releasing security footage that’s been manipulated!
(Aside: This is all so predictable when you hire completely unqualified people for important jobs. They immediately fold under pressure. You think something like this could ever have happened under Obama? Or Clinton? No, because they didn’t hire their top deputies off of cable news).
Trump, seeing the political danger here, started the weekend off by playing the hits, starting with a random threat to take away Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship. Amazing. Hey, you! You’re a dumb guy, right? Easily distracted? Look over here! Remember Rosie, from the 90s? Can we talk about her please instead of this messy Epstein thing?
When that obviously didn’t work, POTUS followed it up by going back to the well with an epic screed about how, actually, it was the Democrats who “created the Epstein files”—specifically, Hillary, Obama and Biden, who conveniently make up the Big 3 of Trump’s political enemies. The thing about playing the hits is there’s a very fine line between pleasing the crowd and just looking desperate. And Trump is not pleasing his crowd.
The Dems, meanwhile, have an interesting decision to make here. Do you double down on Epstein, trying to tie Trump to this mess of his own making at every possible opportunity? The salient aspect of this, the reason why it has staying power over any number of other Trump-related scandals, is because it cuts to the heart of the entire Trump mythos: that this person was handpicked by God to pull back the curtain on all the nefarious operations of the rich and powerful that we were promised are actually to blame for all our problems. What brings out the schadenfreude we’re seeing is that Trump and his folks were more than happy to help manifest that mythology when he was out of power. But now they’re the dog that caught the car.
There are some Democrats who are trying to keep this story in the news, like Rep. Marc Vesay of Texas who will introduce legislation today that calls for the release of the entire Epstein dossier. Ro Khanna, who’s eyeing 2028, is also trying to force a vote.
The political risks of this strategy are twofold, I think: 1) Right now, Trump’s base is tearing itself apart over this. Why get in the middle of that? Once the Dems unite against Trump, the forces of negative polarization will go to work and MAGA will re-coalesce in Trump’s corner, the way the T-1000 does after the Terminator blows it to bits. 2) Why focus on Epstein, who did cavort with plenty of high-profile Dems (including, inconveniently for them, the Clintons), when there is a buffet of other scandals or outrages to focus on, such as the growing national backlash to the ICE raids?
Here’s my thought bubble if I were a Dem strategist. This is a meatball right down the middle: an opportunity to mercilessly attack Trump as just another craven politician who, once in office, will always choose his rich and powerful friends over his base. It’s a potent line of attack. If we can just keep everyone in line and focused on whatever Trump is trying to keep hidden with Epstein, we’ve got a great opportunity to rally our own ba— wait, what’s that? Joe Biden? The former president has apparently chosen this exact moment to give a rare interview from retirement, granting a sitdown with the NYT to discuss at length how he used an autopen to sign all his clemency decisions. Brilliant timing as always, Joe. Trump is facing the first real test of his legitimacy from his own base, so let’s bring the convo back to you and your incompetent administration! I love politics!
EU Threatens Donald Trump With $24.5 Billion Tariff List
The European Union has readied a set of retaliatory tariffs totaling 21 billion euros on U.S. goods, officials warned on Monday. Italy’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani said that the EU remains open to negotiations and is intent on avoiding a trade war with the U.S, but will respond with these substantial tariffs if a deal with the U.S. fails to materialize. The threat comes after President Donald Trump announced a new 30 percent tariff on Mexican and EU imports, set to take effect on August 1. Read more.
Also happening:
- Russia-Ukraine war: The U.S. will send additional Patriot air defense batteries to Ukraine, President Donald Trump, as he repeated his criticism of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Trump said that the U.S. would be reimbursed partially by NATO for the cost of the batteries which Kyiv has said are required to defend against Moscow’s missile and drone attacks. Read more.
- How Trump’s near-assassination was downplayed: A year after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, some political commentators are arguing the incident was minimized by the media, while marveling at how quickly the near-murder of the former and future American president has faded from public consciousness. Read the story.
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