By Chris Stirewalt | Friday, November 14 |
By Chris Stirewalt Friday, November 14 |
|
|
© John Minchillo, Associated Press file |
The Epstein case, botched, bungled and busted |
Back in July, Laura Loomer — who is some combination of Trump confidante, MAGA enforcer and right-wing media personality — went public with her urging to President Trump to appoint a special counsel "to handle the Epstein files investigation." Loomer is good at using her clout with President Trump, and has stacks of pink slips from fired administration officials to prove it. The special counsel, she argued, was necessary because there were real issues of concern. "Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison," Loomer said at the time. This came after February's notorious "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" incident in which MAGA influencers were invited to a briefing on the case and walked away with big binders that included no new information. Attorney General Pam Bondi went scrambling to soothe concerns among right wingers who had been promised swift justice and lots of sunlight in the case of the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, but she only created more questions with new claims and promises. Just days after that, Bondi did a full about-face when the Justice Department declared that the "client list" she had promised to provide actually didn't exist at all. It was getting so bad that Loomer warned Trump that it might "consume his presidency," and so he should appoint someone to head up the probe, presumably to get it away from Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. Just one day after Loomer's warning, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had submitted some verses and a stylized drawing of a nude woman to a 2005 birthday book Maxwell compiled for Epstein. Trump absolutely denied he had ever done such a thing and sued the paper for $10 billion. In September, House Democrats obtained the submission and shared it with the public. Also in the wake of the Bondi backtrack, the administration sent her deputy and former personal attorney to the president, Todd Blanche, to meet with Maxwell, who he said absolved Trump of any wrongdoing with any of her and Epstein's victims and then, poof, she got transferred to a nicer prison while she pursued her appeals. This was all the backdrop for this week's Epstein double whammy in which 1) Trump undertook intense lobbying to stop the passage of a mostly symbolic House petition calling for the release of the Epstein files and 2) a new trove of Epstein emails was released, including one from 2011 in which Epstein claimed that Trump, then a reality television star, had some knowledge of Epstein's sex crimes, having "spent hours" at a house with one of the victims. An important Washington precept is to never try to explain by conspiracy what can be more simply explained by incompetence. And incompetence could explain a lot of nine months of bungling in this case by the president and his administration. Like going to the mat to block a vote that can now die in the Senate, and if it doesn't, could be vetoed by the president, and, failing that, could still be slow-walked and wriggled out of by a pliant Justice Department that's already resisting pressure from Congress for a full disclosure anyway. Like the birthday note denial and lawsuit, it could be just a bluff that didn't pay off. Or the Maxwell meeting and transfer that was supposed to provide absolution but only heightened suspicions. But good gracious, that's a lot of mistakes in a row. Loomer checked back in after Wednesday's double debacle, saying she had been right to warn that the Epstein case might "consume" Trump's second presidency. "Not because it's an actual scandal," she told Politico. "What I said, when I said that it was going to consume his presidency, is that the Democrats were not going to allow for President Trump to have a successful term." "I don't think that it's consuming his presidency because he's guilty, but I think that the Epstein files is the next Russia collusion hoax." That's pretty good spin, but it doesn't answer the question of why Trump didn't take her advice four months ago and get his administration out of this case and let someone else take over. And in that way, the Epstein files really are like the investigation into Russian interference in 2016: By acting so guilty, Trump is perpetuating the case against himself. Maybe it's just Trump's nature to try to conceal things from his enemies, even when he would be better to get it out and over quickly. Maybe he couldn't bring himself to be honest about the depth of his relationship with such an odious person as Epstein with Loomer, Bondi or the other women who were going after the creep back when he was thought to be a problem for Democrats more than Republicans. But whatever is going on, this must now rank among the most colossal failures of administration and communication by any modern American president. If Trump really committed no crime worse than being a letch with those of legal age and having bad taste in friends, this has been an astonishing series of self-owns. Or, maybe it's even worse than we know. Certainly, the president isn't making it easy to know which one is right. Either way, one gets the feeling that Loomer is right about this being a defining part of Trump 2.0. [Programming alert: Watch "The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt" — The shutdown is over, but now for the hard part: striking a deal before the next deadline in January. Guests including House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.); Rep. Joe Morelle -N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee; and historian Allen Guelzo, the preeminent scholar of Abraham Lincoln, on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address and its relation to America's founding creed as part of our continuing exploration of American history ahead of our nation's 250th birthday.] |
Holy croakano! We welcome your feedback, so please email us with your tips, corrections, reactions & amplifications: WholeHogPolitics@TheHill.com. If you'd like to be considered for publication, please include your name and hometown. If you don't want your comments to be publicized, please specify. |
|
| Change from last week: ↓ .4 points Change from one month ago: ↓ 3 points |
[Average includes: AP-NORC 36% approve - 62% disapprove; Emerson College 41% approve - 49% disapprove; CNN 37% approve - 63% disapprove; NewsNation 41% approve - 57% disapprove; NBC News 43% approve - 55% disapprove] |
Some Republicans sour on Trump's management style |
|
|
Writer Daniel Engber with the truly wild story of a Canadian ostrich farm and a bird flu outbreak for The Atlantic: "An ostrich is of course a grand and silly thing: more than six feet tall with giant eyes, a 350-pound sedan on muscled stilts. It chirps and booms and honks and grunts. It wags its tail and pulls the threads from your sweater. … Karen used to keep an ostrich as a pet—a Somali blue, the smaller kind—and she called it Newman because it liked to hop up on her couch and watch Seinfeld on TV. Her son remembers riding Newman like a pony. Now Dave and Karen's flock of charismatic megapoultry was a threat to public health. … And then Karen started spinning out a stranger story. Universal Ostrich Farms wasn't just a farm, she told the CFIA; it was the site of cutting-edge research. She and Dave were working on a novel class of ostrich-based pharmaceuticals—medicines that could one day help rid the world of many different ills, including cholera, obesity, and COVID. The drugs might even put an end to bird flu itself." |
|
|
Steve Kornacki: New Jersey's giant win for Dems has lessons for 2026: NBC News: "The two main ingredients in the [Democratic] landslide have potential ramifications that extend well beyond the borders of New Jersey. … Four years ago, [the Republican] clawed back many of the suburban voters his party had been shedding in the Trump era. This time around, with Trump back in the White House, they were cross-pressured, but their verdict was decisive: They wanted to vote against the party of Trump. … The other ingredient … involves nonwhite voters. It was with these voters — Hispanic and Asian American voters in particular — that Trump made his biggest gains in 2024. … The answer is a resounding no. In New Jersey municipalities that are at least 60% Hispanic, all of Trump's 2024 gains were washed away. … Similar results can be seen in heavily Asian American areas in Middlesex County, where Trump also made notable gains last year." |
But it's all about the middle of the middle class: Wall Street Journal: "To win next year's competitive House races, the analysis shows, running up big margins in wealthy parts of America will only help Democrats so much. The Journal assessment excluded just-redrawn districts in Texas, California and Ohio. The virtually tied result in Caroline County [in Virginia] suggests that such communities are up for grabs next year. The result, however, was a marked shift from the GOP's 9-point margin in the county in last year's presidential race, boosting Democrats' confidence. Democrats will need similar shifts in other middle-income districts, though maybe not as substantial as in Caroline County, to take a majority in the House, where Republicans now hold a narrow, six-seat margin, with three seats vacant." |
GOP's Hispanic slide casts doubt on gerrymander plan: Bloomberg: "Republicans are hardly going to admit it, but they should evaluate whether Trump's push to ignite a redistricting arms race may have made it easier for a blue wave to wipe out more Republicans than if they had left their maps alone. … There is no guarantee that the electorate that showed up in 2024 is going to be the one that goes to the polls in 2026. Instead of securing additional seats in Congress, Trump's redistricting gamble looks like it might just boomerang back on him." |
Court nixes GOP's Utah gerrymander, adding a sure Dem gain: The Hill: "Democrats have racked up a number of key victories in the redistricting battle in recent days, giving the party hope it can cancel out GOP gains in next year's midterms. The party's latest win came late Monday, when a judge rejected a Republican-drawn congressional map in Utah, giving Democrats a clear pickup opportunity in a reliably red state. That followed the passage of Proposition 50 in California, where voters overwhelmingly approved a new map designed to net the party additional seats." |
|
|
Filibuster opposition emerges as new MAGA litmus test in Texas Senate primary — Texas Tribune Poll shows tossup in Maine Senate race for both Dem primary and general — Maine People's Resource Center Rogers gets a grassroots MAGA rival in Michigan GOP Senate primary — WLNS It's official: Stefanik announces N.Y. governor bid — The Hill Early voting underway in Tennessee special House election that will test the limits of Dems' red state reach — Politico Trash-talking Kennedy heir seeking N.Y.C. House seat — New York Times George Conway, inveterate Trump basher, may seek the same slot — CNN London Breed, who lost reelection bid as San Francisco mayor, may seek Pelosi seat — KTVU Redraw prompts vocal Rep. Al Green to switch districts, triggering competitive primary — Texas Tribune West Coast Mamdani? Democratic socialist ousts incumbent in Seattle mayor she defeated in primary — The Hill |
|
|
"I definitely didn't steal the board." — Former Louisiana House Speaker Clay Schexnayder denying the felony theft charge against him for allegedly taking an ancient cypress wood artifact from the state capitol when he left office last year. |
|
|
"Would you consider an additional deeper dive into the 5%-10% of swing voters who usually make up their minds just before the presidential election. If it comes down to MAGA v. progressive, what drives their decision? Likewise, MAGA v. left-of-center moderate. I ask this from my perspective as a longtime Republican voter who holds the thinking that Reagan and Clinton were two of our better presidents (I care less about any White House sex scandal, as that has been going on for decades.) I will vote for any moderate Democrat before ever voting for a MAGA party member. But I will vote against any [Gavin Newsom/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders] wing candidate of the Democrats and vote MAGA." — Ron Petterson, Pfafftown, N.C. |
Mr. Petterson,
First, I'm interested in your grouping of California's governor with the democratic socialists. I know neither he nor they would consider themselves part of the same wing of the party. That may speak to an insufficiency of his effort to rebrand himself to independent voters. That would be dangerous if he prevails and wins the Democratic nomination, but helpful in winning it in the first place. So far, Newsom's main campaign platform seems to be that he is the most audacious foe of Donald Trump of any top-tier contender, which is definitely the unifying issue for Democrats. Will that still be true in January of 2028? We'll see what happens. On the crux of your question and the late deciders, the swingiest swing voters of them all: First, it depends on the year. In 2020, there were lots of late deciders, but in 2024, very few. We could explain that in a lot of ways, but it was certainly an exception to a generally good rule of thumb that holds that it's bad news for the incumbent or the party in power when the size of the undecided vote remains high late into the contest. In 2024, we had a very weird incumbent vs. incumbent kind of match-up, which took a lot of the swing out of the race. As for how they make up their minds, the important thing to always remember about late deciders is that they wouldn't be undecided if they were people whose worldviews were dominated by deeply held ideological beliefs. The millions of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then Trump in 2016 didn't go through a radical ideological realignment. And in a way, many of them were voting for the same thing in both cases: change. Part of their choice may be about which direction they want to nudge the country. Do they think the pendulum needs to swing back? And a lot of it is just the sense that voters get about the candidate's character and personality. Our greatest presidents, Lincoln and George Washington, had a remarkable combination of good policies and superb leadership gifts. But when low-partisanship voters have to choose between policies and leadership qualities as embodied by imperfect choices, my hunch is that that personality is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. All best,
c |
|
|
CBC: "A man took a Hamilton [Ontario] city bus on a joy ride Tuesday — with passengers still on board, say police. At about 9 p.m., a bus driver parked … and left for a short break. … A 36-year-old man of no fixed address boarded the bus, sat down in the driver's seat and drove away. … The bus was an extra long 'articulated' model — meaning it had an accordion-like attachment joining the first vehicle to the second vehicle. … The man made several stops along the way, allowing passengers to get on and off at bus stops. At roughly any time, 10 passengers were on the bus. … 'There was not a ding on the bus. He did a great job,' [a police spokesperson] said. … At first, passengers didn't realize the man wasn't a bus driver. … But when he started making some wrong turns, they started asking him questions and one gave him directions to return to the scheduled route." |
|
|
Write to WholeHogPolitics@TheHill.com with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name — first and last — and hometown. Make sure to let us know if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, Meera Sehgal, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack! |
|
|
Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of "The Hill Sunday" on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media. |
400 N Capitol Street NW Suite 650, Washington, DC 20001
Copyright © 1998 - 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. |
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment