The Current - MAGA implodes over Jeffrey Epstein case

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

During his campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump promised supporters he would finally reveal all the information about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein.  The convicted child sex offender and former financier died in jail in 2019.  But now that Trump is denying he has any secrets to share,  NYT’s writer David French explains why it’s tearing the MAGA movement apart.

There are two kinds of Canadians. Those who feel something when they hear this music. And those who've been missing out so far. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Nile Coxall. We are the co-hosts of As It Happens. And every day we speak with people at the center of the day's most hard hitting, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious news stories.

Also, we have puns. Here Why As It Happens is one of Canada's longest running and most beloved shows. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts This is a CBC podcast Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years You're asking we have Texas we have, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.

US President Donald Trump last week brushing off the Jeffrey Epstein case as old news. But on the campaign trail last year, Trump took a very different tone. He suggested there was more to Jeffrey Epstein's death than the public had been told and promised to release the so-called client list once he was in office. Now, Trump's own Justice Department says Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide and that there is no client list, triggering a whole spate of MAGA infighting, like this exchange between conservative commentators Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro.

Look, Ben, you can't come to me and say, everybody I know says he killed himself. And then I respond saying, I actually have my own sources who say he didn't. And then you say, well, your sources are not valid because they won't put their names on it. Well, no, nothing they're invalid. Let's go down the list and then we'll talk about why they might be saying that. For more on what the fight over the Epstein story reveals and where it goes from here,

I'm joined by New York Times columnist, David French. David, good morning. Good morning. Let's start with the Epstein report from the Department of Justice. What exactly does it say? Well, the Epstein report, which was unusual to begin with, it was an unsigned memorandum from the DOJ and the FBI, and it made three key assertions.

One is that there was no client list at all. Two, that there was no evidence that Epstein had blackmailed anybody. And third, that Epstein had died by suicide. So those three conclusions really struck at the heart of the foundation of what you might call the, you even hate to call it a conspiracy theory because there's so much mystery around Epstein, but the heart of like the big Epstein theory that MAGA has, which is that Epstein had a client list, a number of very, very powerful people were on that client list. They were blackmailed and for Epstein's own purposes in that he was murdered in prison.

That is sort of the heart of this MAGA theory about Epstein. Now, it also connects with a much larger MAGA theory, which is that the United States, both at the height of governmental power and the height of corporate power, is led by a cabal of pedophiles. Now, you might think that that sounds really bizarre that people believe that on a widespread basis, but they do. There are millions of Americans who believe that there is a cabal of pedophiles who runs American society.

And that belief, believe it or not, empowers a lot of their support for Donald Trump. And most Americans don't even know this, to be honest. Most Americans are not that familiar with the base and the core beliefs of MAGA, but this is one of the MAGA movement, the hardcore MAGA movement core beliefs. And also, there are rumors that quickly emerged up a rift between the FBI and the DOJ. Can you walk us through what happened? Yes. Yes.

So, this is a, this, what happened is that Trump selected three people. This would have been a Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, and Dan Bongino, who before they became respectively the attorney general, the FBI's director and the deputy director of the FBI, they were very active in what you might call the MAGA influencer universe during the Biden term. And the MAGA influencer universe was obsessed with the Epstein story, just obsessed. And so you have lots of recorded clips of Bongino and Patel definitively declaring that there is a list, that the list would be terrible for the Democratic Party, that there's a lot more

to the story and one of the first things they're gonna do when they get into office is expose all of this. And Pam Bondi, in response to a question from a Fox reporter, said she was reviewing, he asked her if she had the list and she said she was reviewing the list, It was on her desk. Shortly afterwards, the FBI and the DOJ, led by Bondi, Bongino and Patel say, no list.

Now that created massive backlash in MAGA. And as soon as that backlash began to build, you began to see rifts. As that rift began to widen, you began to hear stories that Bongino and Bondi had had a confrontation. And a lot of MAGA's anger, because MAGA loves Donald Trump so much, wasn't directed at Trump. Initially, it was directed at Pam Bondi.

They blamed her because in the MAGA universe, Trump cannot fail. He can only be failed. But then when Trump began to intervene directly, that's when you began to see a lot of confusion and anger beginning to be directed at Trump. We saw House Speaker Mike Johnson show a rare break with Trump. He called for the release of the files. I mean, how significant do you think that crack is on the MAGA front? Let me just say that caused an arched eyebrow because it is very unusual to see

any break with Mike Johnson. But when I say that the MAGA base is obsessed with this story, I feel like that understates the level of commitment to it. And these are the people who show up at town halls. These are the people who call their congressmen. These are the people who put their signs in their yards. So we're not just talking about sort of the MAGA base in the sense of the people most likely to vote for Trump.

We're also talking to the people most likely to do the work that gets candidates elected. And so you're seeing the core here getting volcanically angry about this. This is absolutely the worst crisis of support for Trump from his core supporters that we have seen since he came down the escalator to announce his presidency in June of 2015. Now at turning point USA student action somewhat over the weekend

conservative Steve Bannon said that the Trump administration could lose to your point 10% of the MAGA movement over the Epstein case and could cost the Republicans House seats. What do you think the long tail of this could be? Well, one thing that a lot of people don't realize is that Trump built his 2024 election victory around turnout from what are called low propensity voters. These are the people who don't vote very often. And a lot of people, you know, followers of politics are skeptical that strategy could work. But Trump had such a bond with these people and that bond was rooted not just in Trump being a successful real estate mogul or whatever, but it was rooted in the sense that Trump is going to root out corruption.

And when they say root out corruption, they mean root out pedophiles. And so if Trump does not do this, if Trump turns on them, these are not people who, as a general matter, were super active in electoral politics before Trump came along. And so if he turns on them, the real question for the Republicans is, are these new voters, these low propensity

voters who we got to turn out and be enthusiastic for Trump, are they going to stick with him? Are they going to stick with us? And right now, the indications do not look good for Republicans. If you look at polling amongst Republicans right now, it is the most core MAGA supporters who are most angry at Trump at this moment. Conversely, how difficult do you think it'll be for President Trump to keep moving forward by harnessing these kinds of conspiracies that seem to fuel his base? You know, there's that old thing, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Well, you know, Trump has lied to his base a lot over the years, a lot. But this is the one where the time that he has lied to his base, or at least his own fig- well, now he's lying by calling the Epstein files in a creation of Obama. But this is the time that he's lied to his base on a matter that really, really, really matters to them. And so that means the question is, does he actually break trust with them here? Is this something where it's a forgivable error and they will just go on supporting Trump

because they hate the left so much? Or is this one where they think, oh, oh, maybe he's part of the cabal because he's always been a very unusual figure to be the one to unearth all the global pedophilia that they believe exists because he had ties to Epstein. He was closely tied to Epstein.

He flew on the jet. He was friends with Epstein. He, in interviews years ago, called Epstein a terrific guy, even though he observed he had an interest in women on the young side. So this was, Trump never made sense as some sort of crusader against sexual abuse. I mean, Trump's been held liable for sexual misconduct in a court of law.

So this idea that he's a champion of like the children and sexual purity has always been bizarre, but MAGA believed it. And now he is turning on them. And there was a post on Thursday, I mean, I'm sorry, on Wednesday morning where he went very aggressively against anyone who's still talking about Epstein. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. And so that's just really going to put this whole relationship to the test. Trump also shifted his approach to the war in Ukraine. He's now sending weapons to the country. That's also upset many supporters. Right-wing

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's called this a betrayal. What do you think the fallout will be on that? Well, it will be less, far less than the Epstein, but there will be fallout because it will be seen on top of Epstein as further evidence that he's betraying them. And so, whereas in previous months, years, he could do this, he could flip-flop all he wanted, and they would still love him. I mean, you would have Democrats pulling their hair out because he's flip-flopping all over the place,

and his base stays with him. But if he flip-flops on the issue that is the single most important issue to them, then you might, I don't want to be too bold here because I want to say might, you might see them start to treat him like a normal politician, which is they get angry at normal politicians when they flip-flop. So what are you going to be watching for over the coming days and weeks as all of this plays out? Well, I'm going to be watching for over the coming days and weeks as all of this plays out? Well, I'm going to be watching for additional reporting and additional reporting on Trump's relationship with Epstein.

Now, this is not something that the sort of the mainstream media reporters have been looking into in the same way or intensity as a lot of sort of the right-wing influencers. Now you're seeing a dramatic acceleration of interest. And so with this sort of background hum of rumor that so-and-so is about to drop a scoop and this publication is looking at this aspect of it. So expect to see some more reporting in the next five to 10 days that more fully fleshes out things like Trump's relationship to Epstein, the details

and circumstances surrounding Epstein's death. But again, again, MAGA is being tested right now. If past performance is an indication of future results, they'll ultimately stay with Trump. But this is the first time in 10 years that I can say, I'm not sure that they will stay. Every other time, every other time, it has been made very clear very quickly they're going to stick with Trump up to and including when he concocted wild conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. They clung to him even tighter. This is the first time, the first time I

have seen this kind of rebellion. David, thanks so much for speaking with me today. Thank you so much for having me. David French is a New York Times columnist. This has been The Current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca slash The Current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.

My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.