Once again, this week was consumed by an out-of-control political fire that is engulfing Donald Trump, his attorney general, the F.B.I., and all of Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress. They built a political Ponzi scheme out of the Epstein files, and it has now completely collapsed around them.

Now, we did consider using "the gift that keeps on giving" as our sub-headline today (since it would apply to the Democrats' position in all of this), but in the end we felt that it was too disrespectful a phrase to use for the situation. After all, Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile who trafficked in underage girls that he personally sexually abused and made available to his rich and powerful buddies. There are a huge number of victims of his crimes, to put this another way. And they were pretty heinous crimes, which makes it no laughing matter at all.

But the political fire isn't over Epstein or his personal crimes -- it is over who else may have participated in them. And what evidence there may be for it all. Donald Trump and the entire MAGA movement has been hyping the conspiracy theory around "the Epstein files" for years now. Trump explicitly promised to reveal all, once he got back into office.

Well, this weekend will mark his first six months in office, and so far there's been nothing but disappointment for the MAGA crowd. First Attorney General Pam Bondi hyped the release of binders marked "Phase One" of the Epstein files' release, but all they contained was a bunch of stuff that was already public. This was early on in Trump's tenure. Then they tried to bury it all with an announcement over the July 4th weekend (when they hoped nobody would be paying any attention) which stated that no more files would be released and Epstein did in fact commit suicide while in a prison cell.

Since then, MAGA has turned on Trump, in a big way. And he still hasn't figured out what to do about it, while the rage within his base continues to grow. So let's review how far down this particular rabbit hole we have progressed, shall we?

There are only really two rational ways of looking at the pickle Trump and his minions find themselves in right now: either they lied before, or they are lying now. That's really the crucial question here, when looking at the whole mess through a political lens.

Either Trump and his MAGA faithful hyped the existence of the Epstein files and what they contained far beyond what actually existed, or there really is a lot of incriminating (or just embarrassing and career-killing) information in the files that Trump and his lackeys are now actively covering up. It has to be one or the other, at this point.

Believing either one makes Trump look bad -- in the eyes of his most fervent supporters. That last bit is key, and it is why Democrats have so gleefully been trolling the issue. Trump already looks bad to Democrats, for more reasons that can be listed here. But his MAGA faithful have been able to forgive or simply not believe any inconvenient truths up to this point. Now they're being given an impossible choice -- did Trump lie to them during the campaign, or is he lying to them now?

Trump, of course, is frantically trying to come up with some sort of spin job that places all the blame for everything at the feet of Democrats. This is par for Trump's course, as he routinely seeks to blame anything bad that happens on his watch on any convenient political enemy (Democrats, RINO Republicans, the Deep State, windmills, immigrants, Hannibal Lecter, the Fed chair, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell, etc., etc.). But this time around, none of it is even close to believable. Barack Obama was out of office by the time Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and committed suicide in jail. Donald Trump was in office, so it was his F.B.I. and Justice Department that handled the case. Joe Biden didn't release any of the Epstein files, but now that Trump is back in office he is in full control again. He went ahead and appointed Epstein conspiracy-theorists to head both the Justice Department and the F.B.I., and they are now the ones telling the MAGA crowd: "There's nothing to see here... move along...." So how is any of this Democrats' fault? Trump has now even been reduced to calling his own followers "stupid" and "foolish" and other rude names.

For once, Trump's followers didn't just meekly accept his blame game and move on, but this was because the real pressure to release the Epstein files came from them. Sure, Democrats are now gleefully taunting and trolling Republicans on the issue, but that's just opportunism on their part, really. They weren't the ones who started the fire, and they weren't even the ones who fanned the flames into a raging bonfire. They just showed up very late in the game to roast a few marshmallows over it and enjoy it, that's all. Which is why Trump's attempt to shift the blame has not fooled anyone, this time around.

In fact, the more Trump flails around seeking some way out of this mess -- the more desperate and out-of-touch his measures and explanations become -- the more people are going to quite rationally come to the conclusion: "Well, Trump himself must be in those files... why else would he be leading the cover-up and trying to blame everyone else under the sun for it?"

It's kind of amazing how tone-deaf both Trump and all his underlings have been on the issue. It wasn't until late yesterday that they even came up with any sort of tactic to attempt to defuse the situation in any way. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi are now calling for the grand jury testimony in the case to be made public. This is a sneaky sort of thing to do, for two reasons, but it remains to be seen whether the MAGA people see through it or not. The first reason this isn't an actual attempt to get the truth out is that the grand jury files are a tiny, tiny part of all the evidence the F.B.I. has collected on the case. They are not the sum total of "the Epstein files" -- not by a long shot. The second reason this is a sneaky way of attempting to deflect blame is that by making this move, they are transferring the decision to release anything further to a judge. And judges are not part of the Trump administration. Grand jury testimony is rarely made public, and there is a good reason in this case not to do so, because Ghislaine Maxwell (Epstein's co-conspirator in sex trafficking underage girls) is still appealing her own conviction and jail sentence. This appeal hasn't worked its way through the system yet, which means a judge could very well decide that releasing the grand jury material would impact the appeal in some negative way. But by placing that decision in the hands of a judge, Trump and his team can attempt to wash their hands of the whole matter: "Well, we wanted to release more stuff, but the judge said we couldn't." This is a fairly blatant attempt to shift the blame.

But again, is MAGA going to buy this deflection? That's an open question. If you haven't been following the story, you might find the amount of rage from the ultra-right against Donald Trump right downright astonishing. Here is what Neo-Nazi podcaster Nick Fuentes -- who is such good buddies with Trump that he has had dinner with him at Trump's Florida resort -- now has to say to the president: "Fuck you. Fuck you. You suck. You are fat. You are a joke. You are stupid. You are not funny. You are not as smart as you think you are." Here's more of what he had to say this week:

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. They were.

Those are some pretty harsh words. And they're not coming from Democrats, but from Trump's own staunch base. And Fuentes isn't the only one turning on Trump, not by far. The Epstein files rage is not going away. It's not going to be easy for Trump to sweep it all under the rug this time.

House Democrats, meanwhile, have been forcing votes on the issue. They've been attempting to get the full House to vote on a measure that would mandate the public release of all the Epstein files -- which is exactly what the MAGA crowd wants. This has put all the House Republicans in an impossible situation, because they have to choose between doing what their hardcore base wants them to do or knuckling under to Trump while he insists that everyone move on and not pay any attention to the cover-up anymore.

So the Democrats keep trying to force the issue. And it appears to be working, at least to some extent. They got one Republican to vote for their measure in the Rules Committee, but it wasn't enough. They forced a procedural vote on the House floor, and Republicans squirmed but voted it down (this was immediately after many of them gave quotes to the press about how much they valued "transparency"). And now a "discharge petition" is circulating which would force the speaker to bring the measure to the floor for a vote if it gets a majority of House members to sign it. Speaker Mike Johnson is so terrified of this option that he may send the House off on vacation a week early, to postpone the whole thing until after the month-plus-long August break. And some Republicans are attempting some face-saving by trying to pass a non-binding resolution that would gently suggest to the Justice Department that maybe it would be a good idea to release all the Epstein files. This was obviously designed so that Republicans can go back home to their districts and lie by saying: "I voted to release the Epstein files," when all they voted for was a polite suggestion -- and when they all still voted against the measure with teeth that would have actually forced the issue.

Trump, being Trump, has tried various ways of distracting everyone. He touted a big policy announcement on Russia, but it turned into a gigantic nothingburger (we're going to replenish NATO stocks of missiles, if they want to send some to Ukraine, and Trump is going to get real tough on Vladimir Putin... 50 days from now).

He threatened to yank Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship, because he hates her. He has now served up two (count them, two!) conspiracy theories of his own -- the Joe Biden autopen idiocy, and (just today) Tulsi Gabbard tried to blame the Russia investigation on Barack Obama all over again. Plus, for good measure, they also released some more of the files about the assassination of J.F.K. (and the C.I.A.'s involvement).

Various minions have joined in the "distract them with something... anything!" effort, which led to a visit to Alcatraz Island this week to remind everyone how idiotic it would be to attempt to reopen it as a prison. And (the most surprising thing of all), for the first time in memory, Trump actually released medical information on a few problems he's been experiencing. They are fairly minor conditions, but the fact that they released something which made Trump appear physically weak is notable, because we certainly can't remember it ever happening before.

Rightwing media echo chambers have also desperately tried to move on from the subject, which makes the following perhaps part of the distraction efforts (or maybe not, maybe it's just him being his odious and racist self). Greg Gutfeld of Fox News had this jaw-dropping bit of advice, on a recent episode of The Five, which seems calculated to generate some outrage:

This is why the criticism doesn't matter to us when you call us Nazis. "Nazi this" and "Nazi that." You know, I'm beginning to think they don't like us. You know what? I've said this before. We need to learn from the Blacks, the way they were able to remove the power from the n-word by using it. So, from now on, it's, "What up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what's hanging, my Nazi?"

To which a fellow Fox News idiot responded: "Nazi, please!"

You just can't make this stuff up, folks. This is where we are now, as a country. This is where Republicans are, as a political party.

As usual, there were other newsworthy things happening in the political world this week, but the only ones worth mentioning at this point are that Trump got resoundingly booed at a soccer game he attended, and JD Vance got heckled at Disneyland.

 

A special primary election was held this week in Arizona, to nominate a Democrat for the seat vacated by the recent death of Raúl Grijalva. In the running were a 25-year-old "content creator and political activist," Deja Foxx, and Grijalva's 54-year-old daughter Adelita. Grijalva had won the endorsements of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Foxx got the endorsement of David Hogg, who has been trying to get younger Democrats elected in safe seats like this one.

The results were pretty overwhelming, as Grijalva won over 61 percent of the vote to only 22 percent for Foxx. And as mentioned, this is a fairly safe Democratic district so it's almost guaranteed that Grijalva will win the special election and take her father's seat in the House. For such a strong showing, Adelita Grijalva deserves at least an Honorable Mention.

And we have to give another Honorable Mention for Senator Adam Schiff's appearance on Stephen Colbert's show last night, where he ended with the following (spoken directly into the camera, addressing Donald Trump's ongoing legal harassment of him): "Donald -- piss off. But before you piss off, would you release the Epstein files?" Schiff isn't generally known for such pithy quips, but the audience sure loved it.

But the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award has to go to Representative Ro Khanna, who has led the effort to force House Republicans to go on the record voting against releasing the Epstein files.

Khanna (and a few others) have been instrumental in making this whole fiasco as embarrassing as possible for the Republicans. In doing so, he is showcasing their hypocrisy and their cowardice.

After all, if their own base voters are howling at them to do something, then the easy way out (normally) would be for them to just do it -- vote on a measure that would force the Department of Justice to publicly release the Epstein files (with the victims redacted out). But that would tie Trump's hands. He'd have to either put out the files -- including the parts that included either him or his close buddies -- or he'd have to create a conspiracy to lie to the public, by releasing only the material that implicated Democrats (or any of his other political enemies) while either destroying or burying all the other evidence. At this point, it's doubtful that Trump would ever have to answer for such a criminal act, since the Supreme Court has already given him a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for his actions while president, but it sure would put into legal jeopardy anyone else who participated in such a scheme. Some might even balk and become whistleblowers, which would just mean the whole Epstein files conspiracy would continue being a political albatross around Trump's neck.

So House Republicans are taking the coward's way out. They are voting against forcing Trump to release all the files, in fear of what he'll say or do to them if they did force his hand.

We have one thing to say to the House Republicans: "Good luck explaining this to your hardcore base over the August break!"

For putting all the House Republicans on this hotseat, Ro Khanna is easily the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate Representative Ro Khanna on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

This is a fairly late-breaking story, but we felt the severity of it demanded a Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. Here are the sordid details (since this is a fairly obscure Democrat):

Minnesota police officers responding to a reported break-in last year found a state lawmaker in her stepmother's basement, dressed in black and carrying a flashlight covered with a sock.

The pre-dawn arrest of that legislator, State Senator Nicole Mitchell, a Democrat, brought felony charges and calls from Republicans for her to resign or face expulsion. But Ms. Mitchell maintained her innocence, and her fellow Democrats, who hold a one-seat Senate majority, continued to rely on her vote as the case against her moved forward.

On Friday, a jury in northern Minnesota convicted Ms. Mitchell of burglary and possession of burglary or theft tools, felonies that can carry prison sentences. The verdict, which came after a weeklong trial, raised new questions about whether Ms. Mitchell would continue to serve, and how many Democrats might now join Republicans in seeking her resignation or removal.

It's pretty tough to explain the parts about "dressed in black and carrying a flashlight covered with a sock," and "pre-dawn arrest." But that didn't stop Mitchell from trying. She told the officers who arrested her that she "had entered the house to collect sentimental items, including one of her late father's flannel shirts," while also admitting: "I know I did something bad." Later, she changed her story for the trial, saying she had entered the house to check on a family member who had "Alzheimer's and associated paranoia." Neither explanation convinced the jury.

Mitchell has, until now, refused to resign her seat. With her conviction, Republicans are probably going to try to expel her from the chamber. And her seat is a pivotal one, because if she steps down (or is chucked out), it will mean the Minnesota senate will be evenly-divided instead of Democrats having a one-vote majority. She comes from a solidly-Democratic district, but holding a special election to fill the seat will take time.

Regardless of the political fallout, the crime itself is enough to earn Nicole Mitchell this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

[Since she is still in office, you can contact Minnesota state Senator Nicole Mitchell on her official contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]

 

Volume 804 (7/18/25)

Of course, there was indeed some major political news this week outside of the circus tent surrounding the Epstein files. The official inflation rate shot up by 0.3 percent last month to hit 2.7 percent (annually). This has been predicted by pretty much every economist ever since Trump started his trade war, and if their predictions are right, it's going to get worse and worse throughout the summer and beyond. As things stand, Trump is threatening massive tariffs on the world by the first of August, but then again he may just chicken out again when the deadline arrives (TACOs, anyone?). But even the threat of it is going to continue to loom over the economy, while the tariffs already in place begin to have a major effect on prices.

Democrats have been searching for a message that will tie together the awfulness of Donald Trump and his agenda with the economic reality that American families face. The new inflation number makes this as easy as pie. If Democrats are smart, they will begin hammering Trump on his trade war and rising prices. This was a major campaign promise for Trump (to get prices down and lower inflation) that the public has soured on in a big way. Trump is down by double-digits in the polling on the subject of the economy, and by over 20 points on inflation. He is weak on the issue, and he keeps making things worse. Democrats need to hit him hard on prices and inflation, and then they need to provide their answer to improve the situation (which is pretty easy to do, since it consists of: "Stop Trump's trade war").

So here is my campaign speech for Democrats to use, not in the form of discrete talking points but more in the form of an extended rant. Because while fanning the flames of the Republicans' embarrassment over the Epstein files is certainly fun to do, this is the argument that will actually start changing voters' minds.

 

Who voted for this?

How many Trump voters voted for this?

Seriously, how many people thought to themselves, while entering the voting booth, "Well, Trump's obviously lying when he talks about bringing prices down, he really is going to raise the price on everything and that's what I want! I want to pay more for stuff!"?

Trump made lots of promises, about how he'd lower prices on everything, but since he got back into office pretty much everything he's done has had the opposite effect -- prices are going up even faster now.

His trade war? All those tariffs? That's nothing short of a Trump tax. And you are the ones paying it, not some foreign country's government. Food prices keep going up, and they're going to go up even faster if Trump ever does levy steep tariffs on our closest trading partners. Trump keeps telling everyone that prices have come down, but then again he just learned the word "groceries" last year, so it's not like he knows anything about it. Every person shopping for food knows full well that when they get to the checkout, they're going to be paying more. That's the reality for American consumers, not what Trump says.

Parents are about to get an even bigger sticker shock, when they all go back-to-school shopping. All those school supplies made in China are going to be a lot more expensive than they were last year, folks. Children's clothing is also more expensive. Children's shoes, too. And later this year when parents go shopping for year-end holiday presents, they're going to get an even bigger sticker shock at the toy store. Buying a toy for a Christmas present has already gotten a lot more expensive.

That's the Trump tax. And American parents will be paying it, not China.

And because everything is so expensive, the stores themselves are hurting. They have to raise prices, since they are paying so much more for what they sell. But the higher prices mean they'll be selling less, because some people won't be able to afford their goods anymore. This causes slowdowns, and eventually it means the stores have to cut hours for their employees or fire them or just close their doors for good. Is that what you voted for? Because that's what the Trump tax is doing. Ask small business owners you know -- they'll tell you.

Trump likes to brag that gas prices are way, way down, but that's not true either. You already know this every time you fill up your car. Gas prices are pretty much exactly the same as when Trump took office -- they're within a nickel or a dime of where they were in January. They are decidedly not what Trump says they are -- he likes to brag that gas prices are below two bucks a gallon, but is that the price you see on the pump you go to? No, it is not.

Trump slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum and other basic raw materials, and those price hikes -- more of the Trump tax -- is filtering through the economy as well. It's going to mean things like cars and household appliances get more expensive for consumers. And it means building a house is going to be a lot more expensive as well. At a time when we desperately need affordable housing, what Trump has done has made housing even more unaffordable. Is that what you voted for?

And it's not just raw materials, it is the labor force as well. Trump said he was going to round up all the "violent criminal" immigrants and ship them home, but instead he's going after farmworkers and meatpackers and construction workers and too many other hardworking immigrants to even list. If this keeps up, farmers are going to have a very hard time harvesting their crops this year. If ICE keeps raiding farms, then the farmworkers are going to stop showing up for work. And if there aren't enough people to pick the fruit or harvest the vegetables or process the meat, then stuff is going to start going to waste. Crops are going to rot in the fields rather than getting harvested. Farmers are going to have to plow under fields of vegetables because they can't find anyone to harvest them. Meatpacking plants will slow or even close if they can't find workers. And you know what all this is going to do? Raise the prices at the grocery store even more -- or it could lead to empty shelves in the produce section.

Who voted for that?

Inflation is heading back up. I don't even have to tell you this, because you already know it. You get hit in the wallet and pocketbook all the time. If Trump's tariff war accelerates, inflation's going to rise even faster.

Trump hates windmills and solar power. So he's trying to stop all new solar and wind projects. But with artificial intelligence facilities needing huge amounts of new electricity, this is just going to mean increasing demand for a smaller supply -- which means higher power bills for all Americans. All because Trump doesn't like wind and solar. Once again, you are going to be the one paying that Trump tax, not him.

You know the old saying "When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging"? Unfortunately, that's the one thing that is not going to happen, because Donald Trump is incapable of admitting he made a mistake. He doubles down on digging the hole even deeper, even faster. That's why even though inflation is going up and prices are going up for everyone, his answer to everything is to just keep jacking tariff rates up higher and higher.

Trump has fired hundreds of weathermen and scientists and is shutting down centers that monitor hurricanes. Meanwhile, he is also trying to dismantle FEMA. We could already see why this is an incredibly stupid thing to do, in the Texas flooding disaster. FEMA had contracted for people to answer their phone lines, but right when the flash flooding hit, their contract was up. Kristi Noem has mandated that she sign off on pretty much every dollar FEMA spends, and she failed to renew the contract, so all the people answering the phones were fired. And two-thirds of the calls to FEMA after the Texas flood went unanswered. What is going to happen when a truly monstrous storm hits -- a category four or five hurricane? This is a man-made disaster just waiting to strike right after a natural disaster does. And it is entirely predictable.

Trump has fired so many workers at the Social Security Administration that it is incredibly hard for any senior to get a call answered by them. They are reassigning people to answer the phones, which just means the work these people were doing -- processing people's paperwork to get the checks flowing -- is now also being left undone.

Who voted for that?!?

And since Trump passed his big, ugly budget bill, millions upon millions of Americans are going to lose their Medicaid. And Medicaid is going to be slashed so much that tons of rural hospitals are going to close their doors forever. Some Republicans even pointed this out -- but then they went ahead and voted for the bill anyway. All to give people like Elon Musk a huge tax cut that they don't need. Kicking millions off of their health insurance was a price they were willing to pay.

All the Republicans in Congress are so scared of Trump that they do everything he demands, even though some of them know full well how destructive much of it is. They are faced with voting against the interests of their own constituents or facing the wrath of Trump in the next primary election, so they just quietly sell their own people out and knuckle under to Trump's bullying.

We need to change all of this. Donald Trump needs to be checked. His worst impulses must be stopped. And the only way to do that is to elect more Democrats to Congress next November.

Democrats can slam the brakes on the most destructive things Trump is doing. Democrats need to start by removing the power of setting tariffs from Trump's hands. Setting tariffs -- all taxes, in fact -- are a power the U.S. Constitution gives to Congress, not the president. Trump is abusing a law that was not intended to give presidents the power to arbitrarily set tariff rates, and if Democrats were in charge we could take this power back.

Right there -- that one change -- would improve everyone's lives and get rid of the huge Trump tax that you are paying right now. That one change would bring prices down and tame inflation, in one fell swoop.

Trump always talks a good game about how much he cares about the little guy, the working class, the average Joe and Jane. But you know what? It's all just talk -- he doesn't really care. We do. Democrats think it is an outrage that inflation is spiking upwards and people are paying more and more money to buy the same stuff. We are horrified when we see that everything Trump does actually makes things worse. And we want to do something about it.

So in next year's election, you can either vote for the party that is aiding and abetting Donald Trump making everything in life more expensive, or you can vote for the party that wants to turn things around for hardworking American families.

That's your choice. Republicans will try to paint Democrats as some sort of demons, but we're the ones who will actually get prices under control and stop Trump from making everything worse. Keep that in mind when the Republicans trot out some culture-war issue that doesn't even affect you or your family. Because that's all they really have to run on, at this point -- boogeymen. They can't brag about the economy because they know it's getting worse. They can't promise to bring prices down because they have been helping Trump hike them all with his Trump tax.

So next time, when you head into that voting booth, think of what you were promised by the Republicans and then compare it to what they actually delivered. Because it's time for a new direction. It's time to stop digging that hole deeper. And that's exactly what Democrats will do.

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground