In ordinary political times, cutting off food to poor Americans—including children, seniors, and people with disabilities—would be enough to shake House members’ loyalty to a president of their own party. Murdering people on the high seas without due process or terrorizing American cities would certainly pry loose some support. But none of that—nor kicking tens of millions of Americans off health insurance—has eased Donald Trump’s grip on the MAGA cult. And yet, after all that, the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile ring and the relationship Donald Trump had with the child rapist have finally created a gaping chasm between Trump and his previously docile allies.
No one believes that Trump actually wanted House and Senate Republicans to vote to release the files (with a single dissenting vote in the House) that would clarify what he knew about Epstein and when he knew it; he simply realized the vote would represent a humiliating repudiation of him after days of failed arm-twisting. He went along with the vote, but no one should forget that he could release every scrap of paper without any congressional action.
It is not hard to understand why nothing before the pedophile scandal moved spineless careerists in Congress. Inside the right-wing bubble, Republicans lie to their constituents and to themselves constantly. Real hardships and moral atrocities such as starving children, murdered foreign fisherman, Americans losing healthcare, and abused immigrants (and Latino U.S. citizens) get written off as left-wing propaganda. Only lazy people get SNAP benefits (or SNAP benefits get used for drugs). Everyone on every boat was “invading” the U.S. by smuggling drugs. Obamacare doesn’t work so it’s no loss if people cannot afford to shop for insurance in the exchanges. All those Latinos are stone-cold killers.
This is all unadulterated nonsense, easily disproved with even a passing glance at data, common sense, and/or Americans’ lived experience. But cults are self-reinforcing; the rationalizations to prevent defections from the approved party line never run out. To admit that you have gotten it all wrong would not only serve as a confession that you are a patsy, a liar, or both, but it would also entail acknowledgment that your policies have hurt decent, hard-working Americans. No wonder MAGA Republicans would prefer the security of nonsensical lies to the gnawing discomfort that facts provoke.
But Trump’s pedophile cover-up scandal is different in several major respects from all other issues for the MAGA crowd. First, the scandal was already verified and embedded within the MAGA base. (Why the MAGA conspiratorialists, especially Trump, would seek to capitalize on a scandal that would inevitably ensnare him is proof of the power of self-delusion.) Second, photos (of girls, of Epstein with Trump, and of them all together) plus emails, a birthday card, and other unassailable evidence have established beyond any reasonable doubt that Trump was close to Epstein, and that Epstein preyed on children. A photo of Epstein and Trump yucking it up frankly makes a more lasting impression on average people than a statistic about how many Americans will lose healthcare insurance. Third, the survivors have heroically come forward. A dramatic new PSA demands that we not look away:
These women have never gotten justice, nothing approaching a full accounting of all those who were involved. The entire universe of their tormentors has yet to be held to account for their crimes; the conspiracy of silence has been condoned; and law enforcement’s failures have never been fully exposed. Only a monster (a narcissistic president with zero empathy, for example) could fail to sympathize with their trauma or grasp the injustice they feel.
Most important, the pedophile cover-up is different because Trump, more than anyone, has made this a huge deal. By freaking out as no innocent person without anything to hide would do, he made refusal to release the files untenable.
The Trump meltdown goes even beyond the pedophile ring, however. This latest political disaster represents just the most recent and horrifying instance of corruption. By systematically engaging in selective and vindictive prosecutions, handing out galling pardons, and appointing stooges to the Department of Justice, Trump has underscored that the throughline is corruption of our legal system. (A whole other bucket is filled with disgusting financial self-dealing and enrichment.)
Trump wields power for his own end and for his pals’ interests. He abuses prosecutorial discretion to avenge grudges. He flouts court orders to demonstrate he is above the law. As the New York Times reported from its 60 interviews with former Justice Department lawyers covering Trump’s first ten months:
They described being asked to drop cases for political reasons, to find evidence for flimsy investigations and to take positions in court they thought had no legitimate basis. They also talked about the work they and their colleagues were told to abandon — investigations of terrorist plots, corruption and white-collar fraud.
One former prosecutor aptly described Trump’s transformation of DOJ into a nonstop revenge-seeking and grifting operation: “It seems comically corrupt. First, there was nothing inappropriate about this prosecution. Second, he won the presidency, so how was he harmed to the tune of $230 million? And third, he has appointed the people tasked with deciding whether he gets the money, and we’ve seen that his appointees do what he wants. It’s as if he’s robbing the Treasury to pay himself.”
Now Trump again has been manipulating compromised Department of Justice lackeys to investigate only Democrats and to drag their feet so as to continue a cover-up that threatens to upend his presidency. The Trump pedophile debacle puts a human face on the corruption of DOJ. Real people are hurt when justice becomes a political tool.
The House margin forced Senate Republicans to put the bill on the floor immediately and pass it by unanimous consent. Apparently, Senate Republicans had no stomach for stalling the release, knowing full well that any further gamesmanship would have put every senator on the ballot in 2026 at risk.
In short, Trump turned Democrats’ chagrin regarding the end of the shutdown into amazement that Trump has triggered a full-throated mutiny. Whether this uprising spreads to substantive issues, such as healthcare, remains to be seen. What is no longer in doubt, however, is that Trump is in full retreat and, therefore, poses an existential threat to a party that consistently placed cult loyalty above country, the rule of law, truth, and simple decency.
This isn’t a “mutiny” so much as one big CYA moment. If anyone thinks Trump will release these files in full, I have a bridge to sell you.
It’s good this is happening. It won’t stop all the other terrible things Trump and the GOP are doing.
Too bad the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent. I would have preferred an actual vote, to get Senate Republicans' votes on the record.