SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
Many of President Trump's supporters are reluctant to move on from the Epstein files.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The president is urging them to drop the subject now that the administration has said there's nothing more to see here. The Justice Department said Jeffrey Epstein really did kill himself in jail in 2019 and that he left behind no secret client list. That surprised Trump supporters, given that Attorney General Pam Bondi previously had been asked on TV about a client list and said it was on her desk. Epstein was a financier, you'll recall, accused of sex trafficking minors. He'd been seen over many years with many powerful men, including the likes of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Those two, and many others, have said they were unaware of Epstein's crimes at the time.
MCCAMMON: NPR's Stephen Fowler has been following this story and is here to explain. Good morning, Stephen.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Good morning.
MCCAMMON: So how did Trump talk about the Epstein files, first of all, in the past?
FOWLER: Well, a key tenet of Trump's MAGA ideology heading into this last election cycle is that there's this deep state cabal of shadowy figures protecting pedophiles and unsavory people, running the government and hindering Trump's policy goals - people who use their power to cover up misconduct and tell the public not to worry. There's been a lot of conspiracy theories around Epstein - that he blackmailed people, that he was murdered, that there was a cover-up. And so Trump and some other top officials fed into those rumors, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel, Deputy Director Dan Bongino. On the campaign trail, Trump hinted that he would release the Epstein files. Now that the Justice Department says there's no more evidence, those same officials have been attacked by some of the MAGA base, who now talk of an even bigger cover-up of things.
MCCAMMON: So a bit of a reversal there. What is Trump saying about all of this now?
FOWLER: There was a lengthy post on Trump's Truth Social website over the weekend that covered a lot of bases. He defended the attorney general, told his supporters to, quote, "not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about." He also put forth his own theory about the Epstein files, baselessly suggesting that Democrats created the files to go after him. I mean, Trump campaigned on the idea that he would dismantle the deep state and root out conspiracies. But now he said he would like for supporters to focus on the other things his administration has accomplished, like his immigration plan and investigating the 2020 election that he falsely claims was stolen.
MCCAMMON: This is creating a bit of a split in Trump's base, but it's not the first time. I'm thinking about tariffs, Iran policy, so forth. Every time, they eventually seem to come around to his position, Stephen. Is that happening here?
FOWLER: I mean, we have already seen that shift play out in the pro-Trump influencer space and right-wing media spaces after a few days where there was a little bit of panic, talking about messaging failures. Last weekend, Turning Point USA held a student action summit where this was a big topic. People like Tucker Carlson bashed the administration's handling, though not Trump specifically. And yesterday, there was a new consensus forming online from people who either said they were moving on and trusting the White House or hinting that there were going to be more shoes to drop sometime in the future. We don't really know if this does anything to hurt Trump's favorability, but it does reiterate the stranglehold Trump has on the shape and direction of the GOP and how hard that'll be to replicate in the future.
MCCAMMON: That's NPR's Stephen Fowler. Thank you.
FOWLER: Thank you.
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