by Wayne Besen • July 18, 2025 • Opinion, Politics, Weekly Column • Comments (0) • 424

Trump Cult in Revolt Over Epstein Cover-Up

MAGA Loyalists Conflicted as Fealty and Reality Collide

Who stole the McDonald’s hamburgers? Was it Ronald the clown or Grimace, the morbidly obese, purple, milkshake guzzler?

Of course, it was neither! It was always the Hamburglar, the masked thief dressed in prison stripes. Who else would it be?

I use this silly example of McDonald’s characters to point out that the obvious answer is usually the correct one. The Hamburglar is clearly guilty of stealing burgers, in the same way its glaringly evident that Donald Trump won’t release the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile files because he has something despicable to hide.

If Trump could exonerate himself, he would have already done so. We already know that Trump has no personal loyalty, so the only person’s reputation he must be protecting is his own. One plus one equals two.

This ineluctable conclusion is so elementary that even his cult of lemmings, aka The Base, knows President Trump is lying. This led to an open revolt among MAGA influencers. Leading the charge was white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who previously dined with Kanye West and Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022:

“[Trump] says if you’re not on board with the Epstein cover-up, ‘Oh, I don’t want your support. You’re a weakling,’” Fuentes said on his show America First. “Hey, fuck you! Hey, fuck you, fat ass! I’m so sick of this. He thinks he’s so funny. You’re not funny. You are a joke…You are a fucking cornball, okay?”

“This just goes to show this entire thing has been a scam. When we look back on the history of populism in America, we are going to look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in American history. And the liberals were right: the MAGA supporters were had.”

InfoWars host and lunatic conspiracist Alex Jones joined the fray, demanding Trump release the files:

“Why the hell are you acting like this? Please stop now. You couldn’t be doing a worse thing to yourself and America right now.”

MAGA extremist Candace Owens also slammed Trump, accusing him of “gaslighting the public” and treating his supporters like they are “stupid”.

Honestly, who could blame Trump for treating his gullible and easily manipulated fans as fools? Q-Anon, who helped elect Trump, concocted an elaborate conspiracy, where a cabal of mostly Democratic Deep State operatives were part of an evil pedophile ring.

Most Americans first got wind of this demented tale in 2016, after an armed whacko named Edgar Welch stormed Comet Ping Pong, a pizza joint in Washington, DC. He was on a mission to expose an alleged child-abuse ring, led by Hillary Clinton, that he read about online. The underage sex slaves were supposedly hidden in a basement underneath the pizzeria.

The episode came to be known as Pizzagate—which concluded with Welch finding out he was a dupe. His Rambo expedition discovered that Comet Ping Pong had mozzarella and pizza sauce, but no captured children. The infamous basement of online lore didn’t exist.

The humiliation of this soldier of misfortune should have ended the hoax. Instead, the Q-Anon creeps concocted a bizarre, partisan narrative. They designated Donald Trump the genius superhero who had ascended to power to bring down this Deep State cabal. He was the only one, in their warped view, who could get to the truth and save the nation from elitist pedophiles who would stop at nothing not to be exposed. This included murdering Epstein in prison, so he couldn’t squawk and rat out the sex criminals on his alleged client list.

To the reality-based community, the embrace of Trump as the man to bring down a ring of pedophiles was always peculiar. This was the weirdo who:

· Was best friends with Epstein for more than 15 years.

· Was quoted in a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein saying: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

· Was exposed today by the Wall Street Journal for allegedly writing a letter to Epstein for his 50^th birthday. In typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, Trump wrote, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey…may every day be another wonderful secret.”

· In a 2006 appearance on The View, Trump proclaimed: “I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

· On The Howard Stern Show in 2003 he remarked: “My daughter, Ivanka… she’s 6 feet tall. She’s got the best body.”

· In 2013, on The Wendy Williams Show, he was asked about favorite things shared with Ivanka: “I was going to say sex, but I guess I can relate to golf and real estate.”

· Was famously recorded talking to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush joking about sexually assaulting women.

· Entering the dressing rooms of teen beauty pageants he owned while underage girls were undressed.

· Was found guilty by a jury for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll

· Was found guilty over a hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

I could keep going on about Trump being a major Bag—of both the douche and sleaze variety. But I think I made my point of Trump being the last person one would choose to expose a child sex ring.

We don’t know for sure whether he is in the Epstein files or the mythical client list. But Elon Musk claimed he was, and common-sense dictates there is a higher probability that Trump was involved than not, given his once chummy relationship with Epstein and his inglorious sexual history.

Desperate to change the subject, Trump wrote a rambling post on Truth Social. He claimed that Attorney General Pam Bondi was doing a “FANTASTIC JOB!” He said, “selfish people are trying to hurt it [MAGA], all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”

Trump tried to smear his political enemies, writing, “For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?”

Unfortunately for Trump, his blame game is coming up lame. None of the Democrats he targets had anything to do with Epstein. In July 2006 Epstein was arrested on state charges in Palm Beach. George W. Bush was President at this time.

Epstein received a sweetheart deal through the Bush-appointed federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta, even though the Palm Beach Police Department found over 30 underage girls had been trafficked at Epstein’s Florida mansion. Acosta allowed Epstein to plead guilty to only state charges. He would serve merely 13 months in a local jail, but he was allowed to leave the jailhouse for 12 hours a day, six days a week.

The Epstein issue took on new interest in 2017, after Trump foolishly appointed Acosta to be his Secretary of Labor. When Trump considered Acosta for Attorney General in 2018, The Miami Herald reported in-depth on the sweetheart deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges.

In 2019, US District Court Judge Kenneth Marra found that Acosta had violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act— which halted federal charges when Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges without informing the victims.

This reopened the case and set the stage indicting Epstein on federal charges for his 2006 crimes. In 2019, Trump was president and lackey William Barr was Attorney General. On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges. He committed “suicide” in August 2019.

At every turn, the major developments in the Epstein case were handled by Republicans. It was Trump himself, who invited the spotlight by elevating Acosta to prominent positions within his cabinet. But maybe he had no choice, with Acosta potentially knowing too much?

These indisputable facts have made it impossible for Trump to wish away the anger over Epstein. He looks like another rich and powerful conspirator protecting the elitist cabal.

Trump is caught in a no-win situation. If he releases the files and he’s implicated, that proves he’s a perverted zero instead of a Q-Anon hero. If he releases part of the files with heavy redactions, that will fuel new conspiracies among his paranoid and delusional base. If the files reveal no cabal, that turns Trump and other MAGA Republicans into cynical liars who stoked the base’s anger for political gain.

In conclusion, the simplest explanation is probably the most accurate. The former best friend of Jeffrey Epstein is most likely implicated in slime or crime. Just as the Hamburglar steals burgers, Trump is the ex-Epstein pal who won’t release the files because he’s likely in them.

This is one “mystery” that even Trump’s base can figure out. It doesn’t take a Jeopardy champion to realize that Trump is trapped and in serious jeopardy of being exposed as a con artist. The MAGA cult is in full revolt, but it’s still too soon to know if their fealty overcomes reality.