Trump’s reversal with call to release Epstein files reveals inability to control Maga allies

Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to back the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, an abrupt reversal, is a rare instance of the president being unable to tame his Maga base and being instead forced to accede to it.

Many Republicans are expected to support a vote in the US House this week to force the justice department to release the files. Once the measure passes, it would still need approval in the US Senate, where 13 Republican senators would need to join with all 47 Democrats to approve it.

Trump spent last week aggressively squeezing allies in the US House, including Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, to back off in their support of releasing the files. Those efforts were unsuccessful, and when it became apparent the measure was going to pass, Trump backed it in an effort to salvage an embarrassing political loss. “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” he posted on his Truth Social network on Sunday evening.

For years, Trump’s Maga base, including people who now have prominent positions in his administration, have called for the release of the Epstein files, suggesting there was a conspiracy to protect the rich and powerful. Trump supported the release as a candidate. But earlier this year, the justice department said it had reviewed the files and would not be releasing more documents. That set off more furor and pressure on Trump to release them.

The House oversight committee last week released a tranche of documents they obtained from Epstein’s estate, including messages in which Epstein wrote that Trump knew of Epstein’s conduct. The messages also show Trump ally Steve Bannon advising Epstein on how to rehabilitate his image. Epstein further corresponded with other prominent people, including the former treasury secretary and Harvard president Larry Summers; the journalist Michael Wolff; and Kathryn Ruemmler, Barack Obama’s former White House counsel.

The release of those messages has only further increased scrutiny on Trump, and built the pressure to release everything the government still has on Epstein – which could be quite a lot, given the number of federal investigations conducted into him.

Some Maga influencers have sought to pivot the story away from Trump. Megyn Kelly, the conservative radio host, appeared to question whether Epstein really was a pedophile. “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a five-year-old,” she said on her podcast. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to one count of soliciting an underage prostitute and in 2019 faced federal sex trafficking charges for girls as young as 14. Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.

The issue has ignited a bitter split with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a House representative of Georgia, who has increasingly styled herself as someone in touch with the real Maga base and has refused to blindly back Trump through the Epstein saga. “Releasing the Epstein files is the easiest thing in the world,” she told Politico on Friday. “Just release it all, let the American people sort through every bit of it, and, you know, support the victims. That’s just like the most common sense, easiest thing in the world. But to spend any effort trying to stop it makes – it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Trump repeatedly attacked Greene over the weekend, calling her a “traitor”, amid other insults. Greene decried the president’s rhetoric during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “Those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger,” she said.

Later that evening she posted on social media that she and her family had started receiving hoax pizza deliveries, and that there had been a pipe bomb threat directed at her construction company. Pressed on CNN about why she was speaking out against the president’s rhetoric now, as she had not condemned his similarly viscous rhetoric in the past, she was evasive.

“I’m only responsible for myself and my own words and actions … and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics,” she said. “I really want to just see people be kind to one another.” She also stressed during the interview that she continued to support the president and his administration.

But whether Trump’s reversal will effectively quell the pressure from his base, or if he’ll continue to feel the heat – including from some of his otherwise staunchest allies – will be closely watched.