Faiz Shakir, Democratic Strategist:
Yes, of course.
I mean, Trump wound this up, first off. I mean, it wouldn’t really be an issue if not he had campaigned on and talked about it, talked about the release, then, of course, most famously brought right-wing influencers into the White House, 15 of them, gave them white binders. They walked out of the White House and it said on the front cover of that binder “The Epstein Files Phase One.”
They were urging their allies to talk about this issue and winding them up. And now, of course, many of those people feel like they have been played for suckers. And the reason why I think that it’s sticking so much is that much of the American public is losing a sense of — a sense of integrity and government officials.
And some of that narrative, I think that behooves Democrats at this point is, well, you did Medicaid cuts, you did tax cuts for the rich, you did some tariffs, you did all these things on DOGE, all these things you’re doing, what’s the narrative? What’s the framework by which we should think about what you’re doing? And Epstein provides it, a sense that, when it’s wealthy and well-connected people, we go to the mat to protect them.
And when it’s not, oh, we go to war against them. And I think Epstein is going to help feed this narrative, help it make it clear to a lot of people who Donald Trump fights for most aggressively. It happens to be people like Jeffrey Epstein.
