The Epstein Scandal: Has Donald’s Luck Finally Run Out?
Donald Trump may have repeatedly paid a known sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, for the purpose of raping one or more children.
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – I honestly have no idea where this Epstein Files story will land. But before I get into it, it’s important to be perfectly clear about what’s at the core of this ongoing trainwreck.
Donald Trump may have repeatedly paid a known sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, for the purpose of raping one or more children. Apologies for the blunt and possibly triggering language, but we often tend to get caught up in the undertow of a scandal like this and forget the alleged crime that’s being covered up. Donald is a corrupt, morally bankrupt predator and an adjudicated rapist, and it’s important to remind ourselves of who he is deep down beyond the makeup, the stupid hair, and ungainly fascism.
Based on what we know about Epstein, many of the girls he trafficked were around the age of 14. Why else would Donald risk alienating his base as well as his supporters in the MAGA news media if he merely partied with Epstein – “palled around for almost two decades” as Craig Unger wrote in Vanity Fair – but never paid him to rape young girls in the same age range?
He can’t realistically claim he didn’t know Epstein. After all, there are myriad photographs and a notorious video in which he’s hanging out and having a blast with the sex trafficker. By the way, in that video, Donald looks happier than I’ve ever seen him. I seriously doubt he spent all that time with Epstein but never crossed the line into being a client. Does anyone honestly believe he possesses the personal restraint and moral compass to not cross that line? Of course not.
But even without the abundant visual record, Donald’s remarks in the last week alone have made him appear immensely guilty.
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Why would he and his team repeatedly promise to release the files, with attorney general Pam Bondi admitting in February that Epstein’s “client list” was on her desk awaiting review, and then suddenly pull an about-face like this? Clearly, Donald is incriminated in the files and perhaps word got back to him about it, prompting the frantic backpedaling.
In the past several days, he’s claimed that it’s an old story unworthy of further investigation; he’s recycled an overused excuse that it’s all a hoax perpetrated by any Democrat he can name without notes; and as though none of that looked deeply suspicious he’s begun to attack his own supporters, disavowing many of them and describing them as “weak,” “stupid,” and “foolish.”
The Epstein story has been one of the MAGA entertainment complex’s top tier narratives stretching back years. They’ve built their audiences to a large degree on the promise of discovering who killed Epstein in jail and which liberal celebrities are named in his client list. And now that a friendly administration has harshed their mellow, yanking the rug out like this, it might inflict permanent damage on the White House.
The administration’s highly suspicious about-face in a memo ending the Epstein case was so alarming that MAGA loyalist and deputy FBI director Dan Bongino stormed off and didn’t show up for work the next day in protest. Many of Bongino’s peers such as Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Matt Walsh, Megyn Kelly, and even Mike Flynn have begun to notice what the rest of us have for decades: that Donald is an obvious liar con-man who’s desperately attempting to cover his tracks.
The question I’ve been pondering is whether the story has staying power – whether it will stick to Donald. The “We got him!” gag from John Oliver’s HBO show comes to mind. Owens, who comfortably resides at the center of MAGA World, seems to think it’ll stick. She warned on her podcast, “The Epstein scandal is definitely terminal cancer for the MAGA movement… There’s just no making anybody forget about the Epstein scandal.”
I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Candace Owens is right.
At this stage, it feels like it could be the big scandal of Donald’s second term. Two-term presidents often run into situations like this: Nixon and Watergate, Reagan and Iran Contra, Clinton and the Lewinsky impeachment, George W. Bush and the economic meltdown, the Iraq insurgency, and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and now Donald Trump and the coverup of the Epstein Files.
There have been so many occasions in which I’ve leaned on the shiny red “We got him!” button, only for Donald to wiggle out of accountability, aided by the firehose of news and the vast MAGA propaganda machine. In this case, however, many of the influencers who typically backstop him are the ones protesting the loudest. And now that he’s directly insulted them – I mean, calling the alpha-manly men faction “weak” hits below the belt – he has fewer footsoldiers to triage his bullshit.
Trump always makes things worse for Trump, and the Epstein coverup falls squarely into that meme. One of the primary through-lines of Donald’s political career has been lying his way out of crimes and scandals, creating all new crimes and scandals in the process, then lying about the new scandals, and being forced to lie his way out of those. It’s possible he finally hit a wall this time, but I’m going to wait and see if this is still a thing a month or two from now before determining whether we got him this time.
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I don't think this will be his undoing. He survived 34 felony counts, two impeachments, the 2020 election loss, the rape lawsuit, and three marrigaes.
He is like "Punch" in "Punch and Judy." Beats up everything. Never loses.
"Donald Trump may have repeatedly paid a known sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, for the purpose of raping one or more children."
FFS Bob, you cannot actually be this naive. I know you label your podcast as entertainment, but we expect at least a modicum of logic behind it.
Whatever the source of Epstein's wealth (most likely theft from Wexler and his buds), it did not come from high-roller sex trafficking. If anything, Epstein pimped out his girls for free to develop connections with those so inclined. MAYBE he secretly recorded the encounters for future blackmail as needed. But even that is a big stretch, because why did Epstein not call in these chips after finally being caught? Why did he not have a dead man's switch on those tapes?
And Donnie is not a dude who PAYS for sex, that would be beneath him. As he told us, he just grabs 'em by the pussy.
Also there is not much evidence that Donnie gets it up from the touch of the younger kind (to quote a lyric from "My Sharona"). Melania was already 35 when he married her, and he has stuck with her for 20 years so far. Compare, say, diCaprio.