The controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein poses the biggest risk yet to President Donald Trump’s relationship with his core supporters. Many of the people who most strongly identify with the MAGA movement believe the government is involved in a cover-up to protect powerful people by denying access to pertinent documents. To understand why this matters, it’s important to recognize that on one side of the controversy are a group of MAGA personalities who now hold public office, and on the other side is the MAGA rank and file. Many of the former at one time leveraged the distrust many Americans feel toward our government to gain attention and increase their standing in MAGA’s hierarchy by hyping the Epstein conspiracy. The latter is made up of well-intentioned Americans who put their faith in a group of people who don’t always have their best interests at heart.
Dan Bongino, now the deputy director of the FBI, rose to prominence in part by convincing a group of Americans that the Epstein conspiracy was real. By way of his podcast and other media, Bongino assured listeners that the government had a list of Epstein’s associates that included the names of powerful people. Attorney General Pam Bondi was insinuating the same after she took office, validating the widely held belief among MAGA’s rank and file that their conclusions about the Epstein files were right all along. People like Bongino and Bondi poured fuel on the Epstein fire because it served a personal and political purpose at the time. Now they’re learning how hard it is to change a narrative once it’s deeply rooted in people’s minds.
President Trump has so far supported Bondi as she’s come under intense criticism from MAGA media personalities, especially Laura Loomer, who hosts a podcast with a strong rank-and-file following. Loomer demonstrated her influence earlier this year when six senior officials at the National Security Council were fired by the president after she determined they were insufficiently loyal. Breaking with Loomer would be complicated for the president, and he hasn’t singled her out as he calls on his followers to stop talking about the Epstein matter and stop attacking administration officials. Even if she wanted to, it’s difficult for someone like Loomer to heed his call. Like so many others, she’s trapped herself in a narrative of her own making and doesn’t have an easy way out.
The Epstein controversy is dangerous to the president because he’s so far sided openly with a government official, Attorney General Bondi, against the MAGA rank and file. His insistence that the Epstein conspiracy is nothing more than a Democratic hoax may be confusing to people who have been encouraged by Trump’s own allies to believe the hoax is real. Trump’s loyalty to Bondi and Bongino is admirable in a way. He’s trying to reward their fealty by shielding them from the pressure of his voters, but his willingness to continue that support is probably limited.
There’s little in the president’s history to suggest a willingness to sacrifice his own standing for the benefit of others. It’s likely that if he can’t quiet the dissension, he’ll find a way to distance himself from Bondi and Bongino to preserve his own political well-being. The stakes for these figures are high, since they’re not welcome in the more traditional circles of the Republican Party and don’t have a place with Democrats. Like so many who have achieved power and position by way of loyalty to President Trump, without MAGA it’s not clear where they would go.
Almost a decade ago, the president assured our nation that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters. In the years since, that’s often seemed true. In fact, the president maintains support from MAGA’s rank and file so long as he comports himself within the bounds of their expectations. In this sense, President Trump has always been more of a follower than a leader, taking cues from his supporters rather than exercising the type of leadership that would change their minds. More than anything he’s faced so far, the Epstein case will test this theory of Trump as a follower.
If the president continues to support the attorney general, he’ll be in the unusual position of telling his followers something they don’t already believe and don’t want to hear. If they change their minds about the Epstein case and reembrace Bondi, the president would have demonstrated real leadership. If they don’t, and they ignore his assurances that the Epstein conspiracy never existed, he would have proven the point that he’s free to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, so long as the person he’s shooting is someone his supporters want shot. That’s a feature of followership much more than leadership.
Politicians often trap themselves in narratives during campaigns that go on to complicate their efforts to govern. President Trump benefited from the enthusiasm that people like Bongino and Bondi were able to generate among MAGA’s rank and file. That power was useful during the campaign when enthusiasm and voter turnout mattered, but it became dangerous once the president wanted to move on to other issues.
Unlike Bongino and Bondi, many of the rank and file are true believers in the Epstein conspiracy, and the president’s ability to influence his base is being tested like never before. This is one of the first times he’s had to change the minds of his supporters rather than reinforce what they already believe. His unsuccessful early attempts to deflate the Epstein story suggest his power to influence may be limited and his reputation as a leader overblown. If his supporters won’t follow, the president may find himself having to revert to form.
To preserve his political standing and reputation for always being on the winning side of an argument, he may need to follow his supporters to where they already are rather than continue trying to lead them somewhere new. That would show the limits of the president’s power over the movement he’s harnessed and imply that the movement itself is in control.
Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis.
