MAGA confusion 'off the charts' as Trump does anything but release Epstein files: ex-GOP rep

President Donald Trump said he was going to expose the deep state and end America’s regular warmaking, and yet according to a former Republican congressman, Trump is supporting the deep state and waging unconstitutional wars.

“If you're a Trump supporter right now, you're a Trump voter right now, you're Mr. or Mrs. MAGA right now, man, your head's gotta be swimming, baby,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said in a Substack post on Monday. “You got to be dizzy, baby, because not only do you know now MAGA, not only do you know now Trump voter, that Donald Trump is actually on the side of the deep state — and that's been so tough for you to grasp, and it has been, because I engage with hundreds of Trump voters every single day, and Donald Trump keeping doing what he can do to keep the Epstein files hidden, and man, the disillusionment I've heard from MAGA, the confusion I've heard from MAGA is off the charts.”

Walsh recounted how during the 2024 presidential election Trump promised to release files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, a longtime Trump friend and convicted sex trafficker known to have associated with the world’s rich and powerful. Once he became president, however, Trump kept them covered up, as did other Trump officials who had previously promised to release the files including Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.

“I want to say that again to every American, most especially every one of my MAGA brothers and sisters listening to me: Donald Trump initiated the cover-up of the Epstein files,” Walsh said. “He's the boss. He ordered Bondi, Patel, all of them. Keep my name hidden. Keep the names of all the other predators hidden.”

The former Tea Party leader, who served in Congress from 2011 to 2013 where he developed a reputation as a conservative firebrand, also criticized Trump for starting wars in Venezuela and Iran as well as threatening them in Cuba and Greenland without congressional approval. The Constitution forbids the president to wage war without congressional authorization.

“It's a really, really dangerous thing for the whole entire world to have a cruel, idiotic sociopath, a madman in the White House,” Walsh said. “It's a dangerous thing for the whole world. As of this morning, four American service members are dead. Four American service members killed in the war so far that America launched on Iran, Friday night. Four Americans so far killed, that number will go up.”

He concluded, “Rest in peace, soldiers, heroes, warriors all. Our thoughts and prayers with their families. No matter where you stand on what Trump did, those four dead American service members are heroes, are warriors.”

Last week Walsh blasted Trump for saying that he will “nationalize” the midterm elections so that Republicans will not lose control of Congress, which both Trump’s sagging polls numbers and historical precedent suggests will happen.

"What do you call someone who is at war with our elections process?” Walsh asked during his Friday podcast. “What do you call someone who tries to delegitimize America's elections? What do you call someone who tries to sow distrust in our elections? What do you call somebody who f—— with our elections?”

Overall, Walsh argues that Trump supporters are no longer conservatives but instead members of a political “cult.”

“I do my damnedest not to call Trump voters cultists, because I used to be a Trump voter,” Walsh explained in his Substack on Tuesday. “I don't always hold to that rule, but I try my best. But when it comes to my former congressional colleagues — these Republican members of Congress, and all these conservative right-wing talk radio guys and Fox News guys, the world I used to be a part of — man, I'll call them members of a cult till the cows come home.”