How Trump Deflected MAGA’s Wrath Over Epstein, at Least for Now

In the week after the Justice Department walked back its promise to release the full collection of files about the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, it seemed there was nothing President Trump could do to quell the fury of some of his supporters.

He tried to coax them as he defended his attorney general against their wrath, asking “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’” He said he did not understand their interest in the case, downplaying it as “boring.” He even castigated them as “weaklings” and disavowed them as “PAST supporters.” Still, the backlash kept building.

But when The Wall Street Journal published a story detailing a decades-old letter with a lewd drawing that Mr. Trump allegedly sent Mr. Epstein for his birthday, Mr. Trump got a respite from the revolt, as some of his core supporters rushed to his defense.

Mr. Trump turned one of the most fractious moments for his base into one of the most unifying by tapping into other MAGA grievances: the deep mistrust of mainstream media, the disdain for Rupert Murdoch and the belief that the president had been unfairly persecuted by his political foes.

Almost immediately, many of those who had been critical of the administration’s handling of the Epstein case cheered the president on as he vehemently denied the claims, sued The Journal and ordered his attorney general to seek the release of more information.

Mr. Trump’s allies in the hard-right, “Make America Great Again” movement — known as MAGA — said that the discontent that had divided the base had dissipated, but had not been eliminated, at least for now.

Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter.

“The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”

Vice President JD Vance, who had previously called for the Epstein files to be released but said nothing amid the backlash to the Justice Department decision, bashed the Journal article.

“Where is this letter?” Mr. Vance posted on X about an hour after the story published. “Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?”

Even Elon Musk, who accused Mr. Trump in a now-deleted post on X of being named in the F.B.I.’s files earlier this year after the two had a falling out, said he did not believe the letter was real. “It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say,” Mr. Musk wrote on the platform shortly after the story was published.

Mr. Trump, who has denied sending the letter, and has maintained that he does not draw despite having auctioned several sketches for charities, sought to make the story about something bigger than himself. He cast his decision to sue The Wall Street Journal as being in the national interest.

“This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media,” he wrote in a social media post shortly after the lawsuit was filed.

Laura Loomer, another one of Mr. Trump’s influential, far-right supporters, said in an interview that while many supporters remained frustrated by the lack of promised transparency in the Epstein case, the news story, which she believed “falsely accused” the president of writing the letter, “reunited” the MAGA movement.

She said that it made Mr. Trump’s followers realize: “Hey, we may be frustrated with Attorney General Pam Blondie, as I call her, but Trump is still our guy.”

Ms. Loomer, who has directed her criticism at Ms. Bondi rather than Mr. Trump over the handling of the case, said she believed that Mr. Trump was able to quell the outrage by eventually listening to his base.

Shortly after the story was published, Mr. Trump announced that he was directing Ms. Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Mr. Epstein, who was convicted of paying teenage girls money to perform sex acts, and hanged himself in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019. (Mr. Trump said he was doing so “based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein.”)

“His latest statement was a way to regroup and reaffirm to the MAGA base that he’s listening to their concerns, and he’s going to do what he can to address them, even if he wishes people would move on from the subject,” Ms. Loomer said.

But even as the outrage appeared to simmer down among Mr. Trump’s supporters, not everyone was convinced. Some conservative commentators still lamented this weekend that the story, and Mr. Trump’s order to seek the grand jury files, raised more questions than answers.

Natalie Winters, a correspondent for Mr. Bannon’s podcast “War Room,” said the news story made her feel “gaslit.”

“I thought the D.O.J. had nothing related to Epstein,” she told Mr. Bannon on a recent episode. “Well, this story sort of contradicts that. So why don’t we release it? It’s maddening.”

Mike Benz, the executive director of Foundation for Freedom Online, a group that advocates against speech censorship on digital platforms, recalled on Mr. Bannon’s show over the weekend how Mr. Trump in 2015 referred to former President Bill Clinton possibly being implicated in the files, helping give rise to the MAGA movement.

“You trained us to go after this issue. We have been grown in a lab,” Mr. Benz said. “Chemicals have been mixed together specifically to breed this particular type of person in the MAGA movement who would care about Jeffrey Epstein’s full excavation of all evidence around it.”

He expressed exasperation at the “the idea that you would just snap that shut.”

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump will be able to stave off the desire of his supporters, particularly the hard-right base that fomented conspiracy theories about Mr. Epstein’s death, to get what they were promised.

But for now, his allies said, Mr. Trump is on the offensive, and will be even more so should the court deny his administration’s request to unseal the files.

Over the weekend, Mr. Trump appeared to revel in his ability to win back his base, claiming in a social media post Sunday that his support had surged among Republicans since what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” blew up.

But he seemed to wonder if his response would be enough.

“I have asked the Justice Department to release all grand jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval,” Mr. Trump posted on Saturday. “With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more. MAGA!”

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