‘Inside Politics’ host Dana Bash opened the spigot on MAGA outrage hounding Trump after the president failed to divulge information he promised on the Epstein files.
Trump’s recent refusal to answer questions on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in prison while awaiting trial, infuriated MAGA activists who had been hoping for more information.
"That led to a lot of frustration online and elsewhere among people who are pretty influential with the MAGA base,” said CNN host Bash. “Here's just a sampling.”
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“This is absurd,” said MAGA influencer Benny Johnson. "Pam Bondi was talking about Epstein.[FBI director] Kash [Patel] was talking about Epstein. [FBI Deputy Director Dan] Bongino was talking about Epstein. Elon Musk was talking about Epstein. Trump has been talking about Epstein. He started his presidential campaign in 2016 by linking the Clintons to Epstein.”
“[US Attorney General Pam Bondi] says that we don't need to hear about Jeffrey Epstein ever again,” right-wing social media personality Jack Posobiec said. “You know what this sounds like? I'm going to tell you exactly what this sounds like. Pam Bondi sounds like Hillary Clinton right now.”
“If you're MAGA, those are fighting words to talk about Pam Bondi as Hillary Clinton,” said Bash, who also included social media posts from MAGA figures like former actress Roseanne Barr, who posted: “Mr. President—yes, we still care about Epstein,” and X owner Elon Musk, who posted: “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”
“This is mass disappointment almost on a religious level,” said Bash’s guest speaker PBS News Hour correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez. “I mean, this was a key pillar of MAGA cannon for years. All throughout the election cycle, the MAGA base really built this up. And not just the MAGA base, but key figures that are now inside the president's administration, whether it's Pam Bondi, whether it's Dan Bongino, Kash Patel, the leader of the FBI. They were talking about this nonstop and presenting it as representative of Democrats and accusing them of hiding the ball on this.”
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“And now cognitive dissonance,” said Barron-Lopez. “Now, there’s nothing to see here. There's nothing to release. There's even internal fighting about it. So, this is something that is incredibly confusing, clearly, for the MAGA base.”
"And turning on the president, personally suggesting that he has something to hide," inserted Bash, "which we don't have any evidence of"
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