'Fever is breaking': Ex-MAGA activist says Trump-Epstein controversy may be 'final straw'

One longtime MAGA activist who supported President Donald Trump for nearly a decade is now calling on his former community to publicly distance themselves from the movement over the Trump administration's ongoing Jeffrey Epstein controversy.

In a Friday segment on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Rich Logis — the founder of the organization "Leaving MAGA" — sought to extend an olive branch to the MAGA community and give them permission to leave the pro-Trump movement. He began the segment by apologizing for his work on Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns, and acknowledged the "cognitive dissonance" many Trump supporters are likely feeling in the midst of the Epstein fallout. He then said there has likely never been a time in which more "MAGA Americans are questioning their support for Donald Trump" than the past week.

"For any of those who are in MAGA who are going to see this, and you're wondering if this is in fact the movement that you thought you were supporting, I want you to know that I am with you because I know what you're going through," Logis said. "... And I want to ask those of our allies, our friends and family to consider respectfully asking their friends and family if this could be a bridge too far for them, and ask them that if Donald Trump is lying about the Epstein file here, what else is it that he might be lying about?"

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Logis said his personal journey of leaving MAGA began with Trump's "mismanagement" of the Covid-19 pandemic and the January 6, 2021 insurrection, but that Trump and the GOP's intransigence after the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was "the final straw."

"There was something at the time that was really gnawing at me that I needed to go public. I had always been unapologetically public in my support for Trump, and I felt that I needed to reciprocate that, and i needed to publicly renounce MAGA," Logis said. "And so it was on August 30th of 2022, which I call my 'leaving MAGA-versary.' ... I wrote a mea culpa and in that apology, I said that I was sorry for my support, that I made a mistake, and that I wanted to apologize to anyone I may have hurt with my deeds and rhetoric."

Logis described his organization as "a community and a destination for people who leave and tell their stories, for those who have doubts and for those who are related and have close friends who are still in the thrall of MAGA." He added that Trump's "toxic superpower is lying," that Trump and his acolytes "exploited and manipulated" people like him for years and that "MAGA has traumatized every square inch of this country."

"But there's an opportunity, Nicolle, and I believe that that opportunity is one where we could see potentially a mass-leaving-MAGA movement," he said. "The MAGA fever — albeit slowly — is breaking. And I think that the president knows that."

READ MORE: FBI agents 'told to flag records' in Epstein files that mentioned Trump: senator

Watch Logis' segment below, or by clicking this link.

- YouTube www.youtube.com