CNN
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It’s President Donald Trump versus MAGA.
In the days since the Trump administration released a memo about Jeffrey Epstein directly at odds with conspiracy theories pushed by the president and some of his top lieutenants, Trump’s movement and most ardent supporters are in revolt.
The Justice Department and the FBI released a memo last week concluding there was no evidence that Epstein had a list of powerful men who participated in his alleged underworld of sex trafficking and pedophilia. It also said the disgraced former financier died by suicide and was not murdered in his New York jail cell.
Yet after years of big promises to the president’s base, the memo failed to produce a smoking gun, undercutting Trump and his team’s own words. And MAGA world isn’t happy, pitting the president’s closest allies against one another.
With Trump defending the findings, the situation has set up an unprecedented loyalty test between the president and the movement he created. While Trump has long held significant sway over his base, the situation marks one of the first times his movement is not taking cues from its leader — perhaps offering an early blueprint into how MAGA will evolve in a post-Trump era.
Infighting between the DOJ and the FBI came to a head Wednesday at an explosive meeting where FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, were confronted about whether they were behind a story that said the FBI wanted more information on Epstein released but was ultimately stymied by the Department of Justice.
After that meeting, Bongino told people he was considering resigning, and did not come to work on Friday as his status in the administration remains uncertain. Trump said “I think so” when asked by reporters Sunday whether Bongino was still FBI deputy director but indicated “he’s in good shape” after speaking with him earlier in the day.
Patel, for his part, posted to social media on Saturday that he would continue to serve in the Trump administration. Though he frequently fanned the flames of Epstein conspiracies, Patel conceded in his post, “The conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been.”
Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who repeatedly promised to release Epstein documents, has borne the brunt of the frustration from MAGA supporters.
She could have emerged as a sacrificial lamb, but Trump has made clear, so far, that he’s sticking with his attorney general, offering a robust show of support in a Saturday social media post and inviting Bondi to join him at Sunday’s FIFA Club World Cup final in New Jersey, where she watched the game from the president’s box and Trump flashed her a thumbs-up.
The infighting has clearly caught the president off-guard, and Trump attempted to rein in his supporters and shield Bondi over the weekend.
“What’s going on with my boys and in some cases, gals? They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Privately, Trump has also doubled down on his support for Bondi. The president called some of the attorney general’s most vocal critics over the weekend in an effort to stem the bleeding over the Epstein files, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Members of the president’s inner circle have also reached out to some of her most vocal critics to essentially ask them to cool it. Her job, they say, is safe — for now.
The president has also reverted to a familiar playbook, blaming Democrats: “Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it?”
And Epstein, Trump claimed, is “somebody that nobody cares about.”
But that didn’t appear to be enough to appease many of his most vocal and prominent supporters, who raised the situation repeatedly at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, an event aimed at mobilizing young conservatives, in Tampa, Florida.
Bondi “has never missed an opportunity to go on television and dangle sweet nothings that might be coming your way. Try to lead you to believe that she’s got it. It’s on her desk. It’s coming tomorrow. You’re gonna see something on Epstein, and it was a tease. So you either believe that Pam Bondi was telling the truth then, or that she’s telling the truth now, but both cannot be true,” conservative political commentator Megyn Kelly said at the summit Friday, calling Bondi the “villain in this story.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, warned Saturday, “Pam, if you can’t do your job, we’ll find someone who will.”
While much of the criticism centered on Bondi, others blamed the administration more broadly.
“I don’t think they’re telling us the truth about Epstein. I think that that guy was involved in something nefarious that implicates a whole lot of people. And my guess is that the whole lot of people may happen to be some of our allies,” YouTuber and conservative political commentator Brandon Tatum said.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called Epstein “the key that picks the lock on so many things — not just individuals, but also institutions.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham polled the summit crowd: “How many of you are satisfied — you can clap — satisfied with the result of the Epstein investigation?”
She received overwhelming boos.
MAGA faithful weigh in on Epstein files debate
And it’s not just conservatives with a public platform. CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan spoke to Trump supporters throughout the weekend who called on the president to release the files his team said do not exist.
“I don’t think people are going to be quiet about it until they really do it. But who knows if we’ll ever know the true story,” said Lisa Britt.
“There’s two things that President Trump lied about: One was that the Epstein files would come out, and they’re not out yet. They need to come out,” said Taylor Sharp. “The second thing is that we’re not tired of winning. He said that we’d be tired of winning. We’re not tired of winning.”
CNN’s Jenna Monnin, Donie O’Sullivan, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins, Hannah Rabinowitz and Evan Perez contributed to this report.
