Trump Turns on MAGA: Only ‘Bad People’ Buy ‘Epstein Hoax’

 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-maga-only-bad-people-buy-epstein-files-hoax.html

Donald Trump is in quite the predicament. Whenever there’s a story he doesn’t like, he just dismisses it as a “hoax” and attacks anyone who keeps talking about it as “bad people,” “scum,” “the enemy of the people,” or perhaps some combination of these insults.

But right now, the story the president would like to go away is his administration’s failure to release the Jeffrey Epstein “client list” or any truly revelatory information about the late sex offender. And the people most incensed about this story aren’t Democrats or the mainstream media but MAGA influencers and other elements of the GOP base, who believed Team Trump when they promoted the Epstein story as a “deep state” conspiracy that would be exposed as soon as he returned to the White House.

Later on Wednesday morning, Trump chided “stupid” Republicans for playing into Democrats’ hands by demanding the answers they were promised on Epstein.

“It’s all been a big hoax; it’s perpetrated by the Democrats,” he said. “And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net and so they do the Democrats’ work.”

So from one perspective, Trump is escalating the conflict with his own supporters like never before. But from another perspective, you’re not truly MAGA if you believe what Trump told you to think a few months ago, rather than what he’s telling you to believe today. So he’s actually only lashing out at Democrats and their “stupid” ex-MAGA allies. Problem solved!