President Donald Trump's ironclad grip on the Republican Party may be weaker than it's ever been due to the ongoing fallout over deceased child predator Jeffrey Epstein.
That's according to commentator Scott Morefield, who writes for the conservative website Townhall. Morefield told New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg that Trump's handling of the Department of Justice's unreleased evidence pertaining to its two Epstein-related investigations has caused widespread disillusionment among the MAGA movement. He particularly focused on Trump's attacks on Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who have both pressured him to release all of the DOJ's remaining evidence on Epstein.
Trump called Greene a "ranting lunatic" on his Truth Social platform last week, and called Massie a "loser" and remarked that his recent marriage was "quick" (Massie's first wife, Rhonda, died last June). Massie shrugged off Trump's attacks and shared a joke that he and his new wife made at Trump's expense.
"She said, 'I told you we should have invited him to the wedding!'" Massie told reporters on Monday.
"Trump’s denunciations of MTG and especially Thomas Massie last night were unnecessary, over the top, and cruel in a way that should make any human with basic empathy question what kind of human he is," Moreland posted to X. "If anyone is responsible for the fracturing of MAGA, it’s the top dog himself. The buck stops there."
In her Monday essay, Goldberg marveled at how Trump used to dispatch with his political opponents within the GOP with relative ease. She pointed to past examples like former Vice President Mike Pence, former Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). However, she observed that Trump's failure to cow Greene and Massie into submission suggested that "something has changed." When Goldberg asked Moreland how much Trump's movement had split, the conservative writer didn't mince words.
“I think it’s pretty serious,” he said. “Epstein really started it. It was like the crack in the dam, I think.”
Click here to read Goldberg's full essay in the New York Times (subscription required).