'Massive problem': GOP insiders fear MAGA civil war will create 'a headwind going into the midterms'

17 July

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/File Photo

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case is fueling a great deal of infighting within the MAGA movement.

Bondi stated that convicted sex offender Epstein did not have a "client list," and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino is so angry with her that he threatened to resign from his position if Bondi doesn't resign from hers. President Donald Trump is sticking by Bondi, saying that the MAGA movement needs to move on from Epstein and accusing Bondi's MAGA critics of being "duped" by Democrats. But the controversy isn't going away.

Wired's Jake Lahut examines this MAGA infighting in an article published on July 17, and some GOP insiders fear that the Epstein controversy could hurt Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

A Trump adviser, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Wired, "Nothing that we do is going to satisfy the base. Even the best-case scenario, an unsatisfactory answer. So by putting wind in the Epstein sails from the beginning, we have created this problem for ourselves. An own goal, if you will, which we can't undo."

That adviser fears that MAGA angst over Epstein could create "a headwind going into the midterms."

GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett, who served in the State Department during Trump's first presidency, argues that the Epstein controversy is a major crisis for the Trump Administration and the GOP.

Bartlett told Wired, "This is not a policy or even a political issue, but it's something much, much larger…. It's a massive, massive problem…. This one is being taken seriously, but it's being followed like a soap opera. I'm not sure that there's any definitive calculation as to how this plays politically in the future because it is so asymmetric in nature."

Bartlett argued that telling MAGA voters to simply get over Epstein isn't going to work for the Trump Administration.

Bartlett told Wired, "Donald Trump's outsider campaign, from 2015 on, was based largely on this deep erosion of faith and trust in our government and institutions. And this is a crescendo moment around it, both around some of the people, the nature of the story, the people that are allegedly involved, and now the government's response or lack thereof. A feeling is so much stronger than a thought."

According to Lahut, the Epstein controversy "could very well be a classic case of the dog who caught the car."

"While Trump could theoretically wiggle his way out of this one," Lahut writes, "the lack of a clear strategy for clearing the air on Epstein, combined with the ever-increasing agita among his core supporters, has left the president's advisers stupefied."

Read Jake Lahut's full article for Wired at this link.

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