There is political blood in the water.
Donald Trump caused it. He fed it. And now the political blood is his own.
Last week the “Moose Lodge Guy” — otherwise known as Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman who showed up at the Capitol on Jan. 6 adorned in an outfit Fred Flintstone might have worn to a lodge meeting — turned on the president. Among the usual incoherent stream of gibberish he spews on X was this masterpiece: “Oh yeah & F**k Israel! And F**k Donald Trump!”
Chansley elaborated, per The Independent, in a reply to a photo of Trump’s 2023 mugshot — “What a fraud!” — that has since been deleted. He also appeared to implicate Trump in a Mossad-led conspiracy theory about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and asked: “What do you think Epstein and Isreal [sic] have on Trump?”
Chansley was quite complimentary of Trump at the beginning of the year, when he was pardoned — along with 1500 other insurrectionists — on the president’s first day in office for his actions on Jan. 6. His defection is the latest example of the fact that Trump cannot harness the whirlwind that blew him back into office.
The president’s bid for total control, coupled with his inability to stop lying as often as he draws breath, now pits him against some of his most, ahem, fervent supporters. It’s just another weekly edition of “SmackDown” in Don’s demented mind.
The president’s bid for total control, coupled with his inability to stop lying as often as he draws breath, now pits him against some of his most, ahem, fervent supporters. It’s just another weekly edition of “SmackDown” in Don’s demented mind. But if “Moose Lodge Guy” will storm the seat of our democracy for you because he thinks the government is a fraud, what will he do once he thinks you’re a fraud? The answer to that question will unfold over at least the next few weeks, but I can’t imagine Trump cares. He has far greater concerns than “Moose Lodge Guy.”
The president spilled his own political blood on Air Force One during a gaggle on Tuesday. That’s when he served up his latest episode of “Why I Left Jeffrey.” In this episode, Trump got upset that Epstein “stole” some of his “employees.” When push came to shove, Trump got around to admitting that one of them was a teenage girl named Virginia Roberts (later Virginia Giuffre). He said Epstein, on at least two occasions, was “taking people from the spa,” before remembering to plug “one of the best spas in the world,” which is — no surprise here — “at Mar-a-Lago.” As for Giuffre, “[Epstein] stole her,” Trump said of her fate, before reminding everyone she had no complaints about Trump. “None about us,” he said. “None whatsoever.”
Trump referred to it almost like a kidnapping. “Taking people” from the spa doesn’t mean the same thing as hiring them away. “They were gone” doesn’t really sound like she quit and got a new job, and “he stole her” doesn’t sound like Giuffre was viewed as anything more than a piece of furniture by either Epstein or Trump. According to Trump, the important facts about this are that the Mar-a-Lago spa is first class and Giuffre never complained about him.
So, in his typically inept attempt to downplay his connection to the Epstein scandal, Donald revealed that a former employee was the reason his friendship with Epstein ended. Virginia Giuffre was just shy of her 17th birthday when these events occurred. And she was indeed working in the spa at Mar-a-Lago.
Giuffre became one of the most prominent and vocal Epstein accusers. She also became an advocate of justice for survivors of sex trafficking. Giuffre died by suicide on April 25. Trump knew what Epstein was. “If you see something, say something,” may be important watchwords for law enforcement, but Trump did nothing. There is no excuse for that behavior.
This is now the fourth or fifth iteration of why Trump and Epstein broke up their bromance. About six years ago Trump said, “I had a falling out with him a long time ago.” Then he claimed Epstein was banned for hitting on the teenage daughter of another member — which means Trump knew then what Epstein was. It was also reported that Trump kicked Epstein out for being a creep. Then the story became that Epstein was attempting to hire Trump employees and “he stole people who worked for me.”
As it turns out, this was about Giuffre. It was her story all along, and Trump doesn’t want to talk about that, warning us all that we should “not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” Had Trump reminded everyone to focus on the victims, he might have fared better. But that’s difficult to get from a man who once called Epstein “a terrific guy” who likes beautiful women “on the younger side,” and described Giuffre as a coffee maker he owned.
The result of all this is a renewed vigor from members of the press in questioning Trump about Epstein. The waters have been chummed and the sharks are beginning to circle. Trump, ever mindful of that possibility, has deflected with a variety of stories including, but not limited to tariffs, drug abuse, dangerous immigrants, accusing former President Barack Obama of treason, placing cane sugar in Coca-Cola and threatening Brazil. He even apparently wanted to use Ghislaine Maxwell to cover for him.
Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker, is the woman who recruited young girls like Giuffre for Epstein. Trump insinuated he might absolve her for her sins — I mean pardon her for her crimes – in exchange for testimony that would exonerate him. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Maxwell to appear at a deposition from prison on August 11. Her attorney responded with a list of demands, including but not limited to immunity, before Maxwell would agree to rant from the witness stand.
On Tuesday, Chairman James Comer told her the committee “will not consider granting congressional immunity” for her testimony. Trump had sent his former personal lawyer, who now serves as deputy attorney general, to talk to Maxwell for two days last week after Comer shut her down. Unless circumstances change, the August 11 interview will probably net nothing more than a repetition of “I plead the fifth.”
That won’t help Trump. The more Donald tries to explain away his relationship with Epstein, the more explaining he needs to do. The president couldn’t even enjoy traveling to his brand new golf course in Scotland over the weekend. After a day on the links, when a reporter thought Trump was in a good mood, Trump said he wasn’t — though he praised his own tee shot on the back nine. “Long,” he said.
Trump is, I am told by those on his staff, a little miffed that Scotland heralded his arrival with a headline in a local newspaper that read “Convicted US Felon to Arrive in Scotland.” Thousands showed up to protest him, and he doesn’t even rule there. “He’s done so much for the world and Scotland in particular,” I was told. “They should be grateful.”
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Apparently not, and Trump’s continued frustration was clear on Monday when he met with members of the press pool. It was then he told us he never had the privilege of going to Epstein Island. Most people would say they were thankful they never went to Epstein Island, so Trump’s choice of words didn’t assuage any suspicions about his behavior.
Trump obviously doesn’t understand the public relations debacle he is creating by continuing to talk about Epstein while simultaneously telling us to forget the guy. He also has no clue what would follow should he pardon Maxwell. For most people it’s simple and was expressed in recently published polls that showed as many as 83% of Republicans want the Epstein files released and that most people don’t want Maxwell pardoned. They don’t want to see a convicted sexual predator pardoned — someone who aided and abetted the most infamous accused human trafficker of underaged girls since the Emancipation Proclamation became law. It would be just a bit too much.
When CNN’s Kaitlan Collins tried to ask Trump a pointed question about Epstein on Tuesday evening, the president told her to “be quiet.” Consequently, when White House Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt held her only briefing this week on Thursday, no one bothered to ask about Epstein as Trump flooded the zone with news about everything from tariffs to immigration, to a $200 million renovation of the East Wing that will include a new ballroom.
The Epstein scandal may prove to be the tie that binds — or, to extend the metaphor, the first political bloodletting that has universal appeal since Nixon was expelled from the body politic. It is certainly the first time in recent memory that both Democrats and Republicans have said the exact same thing. MAGA supporters I spoke with told me they want the Epstein files released. They believe Democrats dominate the Epstein files, but they don’t care. If Republicans have sinned, they said, then the GOP must pay the price.
The Democrats I talked to said the same thing. “We just want the information released. Let the chips fall where they may.” The only ones who wouldn’t want this, both sides reason, are those who have something to hide from the public.
Hence Don’s conundrum. The electorate is clear-eyed about this issue. Both sides do not like rich people getting away with everything. That’s one reason why many MAGA members voted for Trump in the first place. He vowed to drain the swamp and a lot of people, wanting that to be true, truly believed he would do it. While the foot-washing Christians among us may continue to look at Trump while their eyes glaze over, many hardcore Trumpers are such because they believed he would be the man to hold the swamp accountable.
Now, because of Trump’s self-inflicted wounds from the Epstein scandal, even the Moose Lodge Guy thinks the president is untrustworthy and a sham. Trump’s biographer Michael Wolff recently told Charlie Rose that the issue exposes Trump as a “moral grifter.”
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All of the political blood in the water is the result of Trump’s own actions. Some speculate it will “end” his political career. Others believe he is still low enough on the evolutionary charts to regrow whatever gets chewed off.
“He has done so much that’s good for the United States,” a Trump staffer told me with a straight face. “We hope he can make people understand how this isn’t important.”
I do not know, nor will I speculate. This scandal is and always has been chaos in a blender, bought, paid, built, promoted, sold, repaired and ignored by Donald Trump. There is no “likely” scenario of how things will play out — not with Donald. He is a hoary phoenix rising from the ashes of his own stench so often he resembles the s**t demon in “Dogma.”
There are very few surprises left in Trump, and that does not bode well for anyone’s future. Because if Donald Trump does have any surprises left up his moldy sleeves, I shudder to think what those might be after all that we’ve already seen. The whole “Wag the Dog” scenario is too frightening to contemplate.
But there are about 1270 days left to go in which we will probably find out.
I wonder what “Moose Lodge” guy will be up to by then.
