All These Stories About Trump Making the Epstein Files a Winning Issue Have a Funny Thing in Common

Over the weekend, every outlet with a Washington newsroom seemed to be wondering the same thing: Has Donald Trump neutralized the Jeffrey Epstein story by marshaling his MAGA base against the “mainstream media” sources that are reporting on it, particularly the Wall Street Journal?

• The New York Times wrote that Trump has “deflected MAGA’s wrath over Epstein, at least for now,” explaining that “by tapping into other grievances, President Trump managed to turn one of the most fractious moments for his base into a unifying one.”
• “The MAGA base has rallied as they see [Trump] under attack,” the Washington Post reported.
• CNN described “a growing chorus of MAGA influencers coalescing behind President Donald Trump in the wake of the Wall Street Journal report about a ribald birthday letter bearing Trump’s name.”

Politico’s “Playbook” column unpacked the idea: “Spinning the Epstein story as a ‘Beltway’ story is an attempt to reclaim the position of the ordinary American — flipping it so that Trump isn’t the one in power, he’s the outsider crashing the gates.” Although the publication ultimately did not come to the conclusion that this is going to work—more on that below—it also added that “there is truth to the idea that [Epstein] isn’t exactly a kitchen-table issue,” i.e. that Ma and Pa Heartland would not care if the president was a pedophile, so long as it didn’t affect their household finances. (Trump has denied participating in or having awareness of Epstein’s criminal conduct and said their relationship ended long before the latter’s death.)

The Epstein story has been considered uniquely threatening to Trump because the conspiracy-minded MAGA base has long believed the “Epstein files” will reveal a network of powerful and predominantly liberal/elite pedophiles. To some of those right-wing supporters, Trump’s decision not to release the files was an indication that he may have been co-opted by the Deep State. What all the outlets above have suggested is that he might be turning the tide with them by casting himself as a victim of a Deep State smear job—i.e. the Journal’s report that he apparently wished Epstein a happy 50th birthday in the form of a poem about how they shared a “wonderful secret” which was written inside a drawing of a woman with visible bosoms.

But it may be instructive to look a little deeper at how each outlet arrived at this conclusion.

• The Times cited “Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base,” who told the paper that “the Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base” and that “we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.” (The Murdoch family owns the Wall Street Journal.)
• The Washintgon Post cited “Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former adviser who hosts a daily talk show popular with Trump’s MAGA supporters,” who told the paper that “MAGA is now united, because they can see there’s a common enemy,” which he described as “the Deep State, with their media partners, led by Murdoch.”
• CNN cited a certain Steve Bannon, identifying him as a leader of the MAGA movement. “ ‘We are finally on offense,’ Bannon, Trump’s former aide and a leader of the MAGA movement, said via text message to CNN. ‘President Trump has had enough and is fighting back – against his real enemies.’”
• Politico cited and reprinted the quote that Bannon gave to the Washington Post.

The same assemblage of words, more or less, in the four most important outlets in town—not bad for a few minutes’ work! It seems like the real “story” here might be that Steve Bannon is easy to get a response from via text message.

But is he right? It’s probably too soon to say—as journalist and QAnon expert Will Sommer explained Friday on a Bulwark broadcast, the broader universe of American conspiracy theorists does not solely revolve around Donald Trump, even if a lot of them are right wingers who might affectionately consider Trump to be something like their National Conspiracy Dad. The alliance between Trump and podcasters like Joe Rogan, formed in the summer of 2024, might not be a permanent one; not every Rogan listener is a hardcore political partisan who takes cues from Steve Bannon, who by the way has a pretty clear vested interest in maintaining the viability of Donald Trump’s political career.

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Indeed, Politico observes that Democrats like Ro Khanna are trying to use the Epstein issue to make their own inroads with anti-establishment podcast listeners. By suppressing the so-called “client list,” Khanna argues, Trump is closing ranks with the kind of corrupt elites he claimed to deplore in order to impress the Rogans and Theo Vons of the world. In the end, Politico’s Adam Wren concludes that the mere fact that Dems are trying this tactic is a very good sign for them—an indication that, thanks to efforts of podcast- and YouTube-friendly figures like Khanna and Pete Buttigieg, the party is finally figuring out how to win the the war for voters’ attention. And guess whose opinion Wren cites to make that point?

Time will tell whether Trump holds on to the QAnon vote, but Steve Bannon’s connection with his core audience of D.C-based political journalists appears quite solid.

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