From one of Jaden's 2021 streams where he complains about all the gay representation at CPAC from that year. In true closet case form, Jaden talks about how he examined all the pictures because he was oh, so disgusted by it all, up there with Nick telling us how he examined the Destiny BJ video. Ricky Rebel and Scott Pressler mention! Also, we get to hear Jaden doing a Paul Joseph Watson impression and a gay voice (which he unsurprisingly good at).
TRUMP WORLD FELL INTO CHAOS just before the weekend, as the shock from the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein memo continued to reverberate. Donald Trump’s initial response—a long Saturday-afternoon post that urged everyone to just get over it—earned the president a rare hostile “ratio” on Truth Social, his own social media platform. Even right-wing media figures who would normally fall in line behind the president took issue with his long, meandering, often self-contradictory statement, apparently unwilling to alienate their Epstein-crazed audiences.
Maybe worse, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino—whose high level of interest in the public’s view of him has been a recurring subject of this newsletter—appeared on the verge of resigning in outrage over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s move to declare the Epstein case closed. (Bongino did reportedly show up to work today, which we didn’t realize was optional for the second in command at the FBI.)
Everyone, it seems, now hates everyone else. Which was the perfect backdrop for all of them to congregate at a big party in Florida, the perfect location for a mid-July gathering!
Administration officials and MAGA luminaries like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson descended upon Tampa last weekend for Charlie Kirk’s Student Action Summit. In its first iteration of the new Trump term, Turning Point USA’s recurring young-conservative confab should’ve been a celebration. Instead, it became a fraught family reunion where attendees publicly tried to hash out whether everyone should just swallow their pride and move on from the Epstein saga as Trump had directed them to do.
Over the course of the event, it became clear that there are now five distinct Epstein factions within the MAGA movement, creating a type of factionalism that is uncommon among Trump’s backers. Here, dear reader, is your handy guide to those factions.
1. The “Get Over It” Crowd
If Trump’s remarks before his cabinet meeting on Tuesday about getting over Epstein didn’t send a clear enough message to his allies, his farcical allegation over Truth Social on Saturday that Barack Obama had somehow tampered with or even fabricated the Epstein files made it clear that he’s not reopening the Epstein investigation and folks should give it up.
That prompted some of the right’s biggest names to, finally, fall in line. FBI Director Kash Patel, who declared before taking office that the FBI director controlled Epstein’s “black book” and that Trump should campaign on a promise to “roll [it] out,” said on X on Saturday that “the conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been.”
But no one swung on Epstein harder or more clumsily than Charlie Kirk himself. As the possibility of Dan Bongino’s resignation loomed, Kirk appeared at a conference event on Friday alongside fellow MAGA travelers Jack Posobiec and Steve Bannon to fume together about the lack of Epstein disclosure.
[...]
2. Epstein Dead-Enders
It’s not so easy for everyone to move on from Epstein. That’s because, for Trump supporters, the Epstein case has come to symbolize something that goes far beyond the mysterious rich sex criminal and his circle of friends.
They see it instead as the most notorious example of a permanent theme in American society: the elites getting one over on the common man. For this part of Trump world, Epstein has come to stand for everyone and everything that screws the little guy: mass immigration to depress wages, housing unaffordability, and much more. If the elites can keep abusing girls with impunity, what else can they get away with?
[...]
3. The Show-Trial Compromisers
The Trump administration and its still-reliable culture war allies seem to be offering the president’s angry supporters a compromise. Rather than prosecuting the pedophiles allegedly on some Epstein list, maybe instead we could launch trumped-up cases against some unrelated national security and law enforcement officials?
On Sunday, reliably pro-Trump website Just the News reported that the FBI under Patel is operating a sprawling probe aimed at participants in a so-called “grand conspiracy” of government weaponization. The remit of the investigation (and the special prosecutor whose appointment is being considered) comprises an impressive variety of government actions that Trump supporters have been mad about—in some cases for the better part of a decade. The grievances touch on everything from the failure to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her email server to former special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal cases against Trump.
The idea that the Epstein case must be put on the back burner to focus on politicized prosecutions against other Trump foes has caught on among parts of the larger MAGA influencer network. Conspiracy theorist Lara Logan defended Bondi on X, suggesting the attacks over her handling of the Epstein matter might be meant to distract from an investigation of former CIA director John Brennan.
[...]
Once, QAnon believers urged one another to put blind faith in Trump and “trust the plan,” knowing in their hearts that he would take on and ultimately defeat the pedophile cabal.
Now, some of Trump’s media allies are saying their audiences should “trust the plan” and leave the powerful cabal alone.
For example, comedian Tim Dillon suggested that if Trump pushed further on the Epstein case, the cabal would kill him.
But no one has gone further than Dilbert creator and MAGA pontificator Scott Adams. While Patel is arguing that the Epstein case is just not as big as its advocates have claimed, Adams suggests that the pedophile cabal is very real indeed—so real, in fact, that it’s just too powerful for Trump to take on directly. Giving up on Epstein, Adams argues, will at least ensure Republicans stay in power.
[...]
5. The Oblivious
No one has more badly misjudged the current Epstein moment than longtime Trump-world creature Roger Stone, who gave a speech at the TPUSA conference while dressed in his customary Al Capone-chic. Stone told the audience about a conversation he’d purportedly had with a reporter who kept asking Stone, “What about Epstein?” In Stone’s recounting, he steadfastly ignored the question and touted Trump policy accomplishments. As Stone talked up the Big Beautiful Bill and the Golden Dome missile shield, the reporter just kept bringing up the infamous pedophile.
The MAGA movement is having a civil war over the Epstein Files, and more specifically, Donald Trump’s handling of the issue.
See Also:
Steady (Dan Rather): MAGA Turns on Trump
Popular Information: How QAnon and Epstein sparked Trump's political crisis
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over the weekend served up a wide range of false claims about Democrats and their legislation protecting same-sex marriage, which passed past week with a strong bipartisan majority.
The Colorado Republican lawmaker during a conservative conference denied being an escort for Sen. Ted Cruz, claimed Democrats have “weakened the nuclear family and undermined masculinity” by passing the bill, and even claimed 47 GOP lawmakers only voted for the bill out of fear of attack ads if they did not.
Legal experts believe Republicans and the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court are targeting the constitutional rights of same-sex couples to marry, and the House last week voted to protect the marriages of same-sex couples in response. The Senate may vote on the bill this week. It’s unclear if it will pass.
But Boebert, who – without even being asked – strenuously denied once being an escort for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, told far right wing radio show host Charlie Kirk that Democrats “really have launched in an all out assault on America’s traditional values.”
She repeatedly called the legislation “unnecessary,” and said: “I think the federal government should not be involved in marriage. My marriage between my husband is really between me and God, not between me and the government.”
[...]
“They have weakened the nuclear family and undermined masculinity and even femininity,” Boebert claimed, presumably speaking about Democrats, “and the people who can’t even define what a woman is now wants [sic] to get in the middle of defining a government, a covenant between a man and a woman and God.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)’s claim that the Democrats (and 47 Republicans) who voted to pass the Respect For Marriage Act “weakened the nuclear family and undermined masculinity and even femininity” is pure lunacy.
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), the subject of tremendous mockery and derision after the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack Thu
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), the subject of tremendous mockery and derision after the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack Thursday night aired previously unseen footage of him running away from rioters and insurrectionists, took to the stage at a far right convention in Florida on Friday to declare he is not ashamed and not backing down.
“And here I am standing in front of you and I am unbowed. I am unrepentant. And I am unafraid!” Hawley defiantly announced. “And if I can do it you can do it.”
Not only did Hawley say he was unrepentant, he announced at the Turning Point USA annual Student Action Summit in Tampa he has no regrets about his actions.
“I objected on January 6, and I just want to say, to all of the liberals out there, to the liberal media – just in case you haven’t gotten the message yet, I do not regret it!” he shouted. “And I am not backing down! I’m not going to apologize, I’m not gonna cower, I’m not gonna run from you, I’m not gonna bend the knee!”
