Dem
47
GOP
53
Once it was clear that Donald Trump was going to lose the Epstein files vote in the House—and bigly—he tried to make clear to everyone that the emperor is still wearing his clothes. By that, we mean he announced, on Sunday night, that he really, really wants House Republicans to vote in favor of the release. "House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide," were his exact words. This was a very obvious, and very clumsy, attempt to rewrite the narrative, so that when the Republicans in the House do vote to release the files, Trump can claim they are just following orders, and that they are definitely not rebelling against him.
We were prepared to write an item pointing out that if he really does want the bill put forward by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to succeed, that is well within Trump's power. He can tell Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate, and he can tell Senate Republicans he wants them to vote for it, and he can then sign the bill. But before we could write that, and add "Once again, Trump seems not to have thought through the implications of his words," he beat us to the punch. Asked on Monday if he would sign such a bill, Trump said:
Sure I would. It is really a Democrat problem. The Democrats were Epstein's friends, all of them. And it is a hoax, the whole thing is a hoax. I don't want to take it away from, really, the greatness of what the Republican Party has accomplished over the last period of time.
That's pretty definite.
As we generally do in these situations, we've tried to come up with our best guesses as to what is going on. We have several theories, but they are all problematic:
Theory 1: Trump has lost his mind, either due to some sort of cognitive decline, or because he's angry/frightened/whatever, and so is just saying whatever his id tells him to say.
Problem(s) with This Theory: There is clearly something in those files that Trump does not want to be made public. He has maintained firm discipline on this point (not to mention a firm grip on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA) for months and months. It seems implausible that all of that would evaporate in 48 hours.
Theory 2: Trump, whose grasp on the distinction between "real" and "fantasy" has long been shaky, has internalized "This is all about the Democrats/Bill Clinton" as some sort of defense mechanism, and now actually believes that the only bad news in there is bad news about the Democrats/Bill Clinton.
Problem(s) with This Theory: Same as above. Trump has spent a very long time trying to keep the Epstein files from going public. Could his entire thinking on the matter really change 180 degrees in the span of a weekend?
Theory 3: This is a Nixonian attempt to look innocent by pretending he has nothing to hide, and taking steps ostensibly meant to uncover the truth.
Problem(s) with This Theory: This did not work for Nixon who, as you may have heard, was ultimately forced to resign. Further, even when Nixon thought it WOULD work, his scheme was to hire someone to look for evidence, hoping that person would not actually find the evidence that Nixon knew full well existed. Tricky Dick's hope was that Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox would eventually say, "I looked everywhere, and didn't find anything implicating the President."
Even if the Nixon scheme WAS going to work, then, it involved half-measures meant to give the impression that answers were being sought. The scheme most certainly does not work when the "nothing to hide" maneuver involves releasing the actual evidence. To put it in Nixonian terms, it would be like him trying to prove his innocence by releasing the actual Oval Office tapes.
Theory 4: Trump is counting on John Thune to be his firewall, with the notion that they will perform some kabuki theater wherein Trump says "I really want the bill to come up in the Senate" and Thune says, "No, no, no, the Senate has more important things to do in service of the American people."
Problem(s) with This Theory: It's very hard to accept that Thune would play this game. He's bulletproof, as a Republican in a red state, and one who is not up in 2026. The only way he might cease to be bulletproof is if he runs afoul of the "release the files" Republicans (e.g., people on the same page as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA). He's not going to subject himself, and the members of the Senate Republican Conference, to months and months of unrelenting scrutiny and pressure, just to participate in Trump's little burlesque.
Theory 5: Trump's underlings have already gone through and scrubbed the Epstein files, such that they no longer contain anything harmful to Trump.
Problem(s) with This Theory: This would seem to be the most obvious explanation, but there are two problems here. The first is that the "review" conducted by FBI officials was completed months ago. If Team Trump was persuaded that the evidence was now "sanitized," why would they keep up this desperate fight for so long? Because the only effect has been to make it look like Trump is hiding something.
The second problem is that the Department of Justice does not have the only copies of this material. If the White House releases something that's been manipulated, and someone out there has the original and makes it public, that will pour many barrels of kerosene onto the conspiratorial fires (not unlike the missing minutes from the Epstein suicide video).
Theory 6: Trump and his people have knowledge that a bunch of Epstein material is about to be released by some source beyond the White House's control, and this is their desperate attempt to get out ahead of that.
Problem(s) with This Theory: This is at least plausible, since there are numerous people/entities out there who either have some of the material, or who claim they do. That said, does the Epstein estate, or anyone else, really have information that is highly incriminating and yet is not public? We just don't know.
If you absolutely insisted that we make a guess, we would guess that it's some version of Theory #5. The files have been "sanitized," and while the administration would rather not put that to the smell test, it's left with limited options, at this point. We would guess that someone in the administration has decided it's wisest to stop the drip, drip, drip of information that has kept this in the headlines for months, to let this thing play out as quickly as possible (ideally before the holidays), and to let the cards fall where they may.
Whatever is going on with Epsteinpot Dome, and whatever will unfold over the next few months, there certainly looks to be an overall trend developing here. This weekend, we had intended to answer this question from reader D.H. in Boulder, CO:
I have my regular reads and views: Electoral-vote.com, Heather Cox Richardson, CNN, MSNBC, the Daily Beast, The New York Times and several more. I see more and more content that says even the right (aka, Fox News) is challenging Trump and his leadership. The latest is Laura Ingraham's interview where she challenged him on a number of fronts. Is this a real thing? How can we know in real time that the emperor's clothes are disappearing? (With major apologies for that analogy and the images it might conjure.)
We put that aside, because we already had produced too many words, with the intention of answering it this weekend. But, we will answer it now, with the answer we had planned:
You know what you can't see while walking through the forest? The forest. You can certainly see the individual trees, perhaps many of them. But the only way to see the whole forest, or anything close to the whole forest, is to somehow gain an aerial view (mountaintop, helicopter, etc.).
Similarly, it is very difficult to identify a long-term trend, or even a medium-term trend, while you're living through the events that make up that trend. If there is a downfall for Donald Trump, then the sequence of events that led to that will only be clear in hindsight (as was the case with, say, Richard Nixon). That said, just as Woodward and Bernstein could write "These new revelations about Nixon using the IRS to go after political enemies look pretty bad for him," we can and will point out signs of weakness in Trump.
Well, this Epstein vote in the House is the biggest sign of weakness we've seen during Trump v2.0, and by a lot. It might be the biggest sign of weakness we've seen during either Trump term. This is very important to him, and very personal, and dozens of Republicans (or more) are planning to tell the President "tough luck."
And it's not the only recent sign of weakness. In fact, Politico had a list yesterday addressing five additional recent occasions where Trump was unable to bend things to his will:
To that, how about we add five more?
We know he promised that MAGA would get tired of all the winning. Did he ever say anything about all the losing?
The bottom line is that Trump is a lame duck. His party took a beating at the polls in the elections earlier this month, and they are at risk of taking another, much more costly beating in November of next year. His approval rating is dismal; he's on the cusp of being 20 points underwater, on average. And members of the GOP are defying him and getting away with it. These trendlines could lead to a place that makes the President very unhappy.
Trump is very much like Garfield (the comic strip character, not the 19th century president): lazy, orange-colored, and endowed with nine lives. The President has come back from the grave before, most obviously after the "grab 'em by the pu**y" video and the events of 1/6. He might do it again. But could we be watching the beginning of the end for him? Yeah, it's possible. (Z)