WASHINGTON – In a stunning and politically perilous escalation, President Donald Trump has turned on his own base, launching a furious attack against his most ardent supporters for their continued obsession with the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a saga he now dismisses as a “Hoax.” The president’s tirade, in which he labeled his followers “weaklings” and accused them of being duped by Democrats, marks a dramatic rupture within the MAGA movement and signals a profound crisis for a leader who is now struggling to control the very forces of conspiracy he spent years unleashing.
The schism, which has been simmering for days, boiled over on Wednesday when Trump took to his Truth Social platform to lash out at the growing rebellion within his ranks. The backlash stems from the administration’s failure to produce a long-promised “client list” of powerful elites from the Epstein investigation, a failure that has been met with fury and accusations of a cover-up from the conservative influencers and activists who form the core of his political machine.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bull——,” hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote, using an expletive in his post. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
In a remarkable break with his carefully cultivated image as the champion of his base, Trump appeared to disown a segment of his own movement. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” he declared.
The president’s broadside is a high-risk gamble. While he cannot legally run for another term, he needs a unified and energized Republican party to pass his remaining legislative agenda in a narrowly divided Congress and to drive turnout in next year’s critical midterm elections. This open warfare with his base threatens to alienate the very people whose unwavering loyalty has been the bedrock of his political power.
A Self-Inflicted Crisis
The political firestorm is a crisis entirely of Trump’s own making, the predictable result of a strategy that has long relied on stoking dark theories and embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only savior who can demolish the “deep state.” Now that he runs the federal government, the community he built to question authority is coming back to haunt him, demanding answers he is either unable or unwilling to provide.
The catalyst for the revolt was a two-page memo released last week by the Justice Department and the FBI. After years of promises from Trump allies that bombshell revelations were forthcoming, the memo acknowledged that Jeffrey Epstein did not maintain a “client list” and that no more files related to the investigation would be made public. This reversal was a stunning betrayal to a base that had been led to believe, including by Attorney General Pam Bondi herself, that explosive documents were just waiting to be released.
Trump’s attempts to downplay the issue and defend Bondi have only fueled the outrage. “I don’t understand what the interest or what the fascination is,” he said Tuesday, after unsuccessfully urging his followers to stop wasting “Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
In an Oval Office appearance on Wednesday, after his scathing social media post, Trump doubled down, saying he had “lost a lot of faith in certain people.”
“It’s all been a big hoax,” he told reporters. “It’s perpetrated by the Democrats, and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net.” He complained that Bondi has been unfairly “waylaid” and insisted she has released all “credible information” about the case.
“The faulty assumption Trump and others make is they can peddle conspiracy theories without any blowback,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “The Epstein case is a neat encapsulation that it is hard to put the genie back in the bottle.”
The MAGA Rebellion
Trump’s comments have done nothing to quell the anger. Across conservative media, the figures who helped build his movement are now openly questioning his judgment and leadership.
Far-right conspiracy theorist and podcaster Alex Jones called Trump’s handling of the situation “the biggest train wreck I’ve ever seen.” In a video message directed at the president, he said, “It’s not in character for you to be acting like this. I support you, but we built the movement you rode in on. You’re not the movement. You just surfed in on it.”
Benny Johnson, another conservative podcaster, said he was trying to “give tough love and speak on behalf of the base.” He speculated, “Maybe it hasn’t been framed correctly for the president. I don’t know.” House Speaker Mike Johnson, appearing on the show, added his own pressure, calling for the Justice Department to “put everything out there and let the people decide.”
Even Trump’s first-term national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, implored his former boss to correct course. “All we want at this stage is for a modicum of trust to be reestablished between our federal government and the people it is designed to serve,” Flynn wrote in a lengthy public message. “With my strongest recommendation, please gather your team and figure out a way to move past this.”
The anger was palpable at the recent Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, where conservative influencers demanded action. Far-right activist Laura Loomer has called for Bondi’s resignation and for a special counsel to be appointed. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, while trying to perform damage control for the president, acknowledged the deep frustration.
“People are very, very confused, and some people are very disappointed and mad,” Kirk said on his podcast. “We made so much progress with Gen Z, and this is a big vulnerability. Online, on TikTok, this story is not landing well. Let’s fix this, and we can.”
Experts say the Epstein case is uniquely potent because it is rooted in a horrific truth: a wealthy and well-connected financier did spend years abusing young girls while escaping justice. This makes the desire for a larger, more sinister explanation incredibly compelling.
“The value of conspiratorial fabrications is that they help people get political power,” said Russell Muirhead, a Dartmouth College political science professor. But if Trump fails to provide transparency on this issue, he warned, “large segments of his most enthusiastic and devoted supporters are going to lose faith in him.”
As the right-wing outrage dominates the political conversation, Democrats and other Trump rivals have been taking advantage, calling for the release of all Epstein files and suggesting Trump could be resisting because he or his allies are implicated. The internal chaos also carries a real cost to governing, with reports of tense exchanges and potential resignations among top law enforcement officials.
The ultimate danger for Trump is that he has created a movement that may no longer need him as its leader. By attacking his own supporters as “weaklings” and dismissing their core concerns as a “hoax,” he risks alienating the very people who gave him power. As his former adviser Steve Bannon warned at the Turning Point summit, “For this to go away, you’re going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement.” In a deeply divided country, that is a loss that not even Donald Trump may be able to afford.
