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A damning report released on Monday from Senate Democrats raises alarm bells about how President Donald Trump’s actions in office have hurt America on the world stage and are boosting China’s fortunes. The report entitled “The Price of Retreat: America Cedes Global Leadership to China” was released by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it pulls together information collected via meetings with international charities, foreign officials, and U.S. companies. In a press release accompanying the document, the Democrats conclude that Trump’s failure to come up with a “whole-of-government” approach to international strategy “has created space for China to expand its global influence in ways that harm American economic and security interests.” U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand at their joint press conference in Beijing in November 2017. “While President Trump retreats from every corner of the world—attacking allies, slashing America’s diplomatic tools and embracing adversaries—China is building influence, expanding relationships and reshaping the global order to its advantage,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. Several areas of concern were highlighted in the report. It criticizes Trump’s haphazard tariff policy, noting that since taking office in January, his administration has announced new or revised tariff policies over 50 times. The tariffs have harmed longstanding international alliances between the U.S. and other nations, and have pushed some of those nations to consider moving closer to China since that nation has sought to grow its sphere of international influence. In particular, the report notes that Trump tariffs “have direct consequences” on American military readiness and the ability of the U.S. defense industry to sell their products on the international market. In another area, the report points out that the decision to severely curtail international aid—particularly via cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development, led by Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency—are threatening vulnerable people who depend on that help. At the same time, China has increased its planned spending on aid, allowing them to be seen as a more reliable ally than America. Flowers are left outside the U.S. Agency for International Development office in Washington on Feb. 3, following the Trump administration’s attacks on the agency. America has been hurt by a “brain drain” under Trump, the report notes. As China has been striving to surpass America as a major source of intellectual talent, the report explains that the Trump administration has cut federal grants for research and has attacked universities and international students attending those schools.  Trump also chose to eliminate the unit in the State Department tasked with countering disinformation while also cutting funding for Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, two federally funded news outlets. The report explains that while America has been retreating on providing the world with information, “China spends over a billion dollars annually on propaganda and foreign media manipulation.” Other recent data has shown the cost of the Trump-led retreat. Under Trump, approval of America has dropped by double digits in multiple countries, according to recent data by the Pew Research Center. Nineteen of the 24 countries surveyed viewed the U.S. more negatively in this year than in 2024, when former President Joe Biden was in the White House. A key element of Trump’s presidency has been renewed friction with longtime allies, including border nations like Canada and Mexico, where positively views of the U.S. have fallen sharply. Datawrapper Content Trump’s economic policies are causing chaos for both businesses and families, allowing an opening for China to increase their global reach and influence. Despite promising to “make America great again,” Trump is instead locked in on ideas and rhetoric that appear to help China more than any other country.

The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to put his plan to dismantle the Education Department back on track — and to go through with laying off nearly 1,400 employees. With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court on Monday paused an order from U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston, who issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs and calling into question the broader plan. The layoffs “will likely cripple the department,” Joun wrote. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed. The high court action enables the administration to resume work on winding down the department, one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises. Related | The Trump administration’s war on children The court did not explain its decision in favor of Trump, as is customary in emergency appeals. But in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor complained that her colleagues were enabling legally questionable action on the part of the administration. “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Sotomayor wrote for herself and Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said it’s a “shame” it took the Supreme Court’s intervention to let Trump’s plan move ahead. “Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement. Donald Trump holds an executive order relating to school discipline policies as Linda McMahon listens in the Oval Office on April 23. The Supreme Court has handed Trump one victory after another in his effort to remake the federal government, after lower courts have found the administration’s actions probably violate federal law. Last week, the justices cleared the way for Trump’s plan to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce. On the education front, the high court has previously allowed cuts in teacher-training grants to go forward. Separately on Monday, more than 20 states sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs and more. Education Department employees who were targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff. Joun’s order had prevented the department from fully terminating them, though none had been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without Joun’s order, the workers would have been terminated in early June. The Education Department had said earlier in June that it was “actively assessing how to reintegrate” the employees. A department email asked them to share whether they had gained other employment, saying the request was meant to “support a smooth and informed return to duty.” The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump’s plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department. One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other legal action was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general. The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid, and enforce civil rights laws.

Democratic lawmakers are demanding Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to answer thousands of calls from victims of the Texas floods. The demand comes after Noem claimed that a report from The New York Times—which said that she refused to extend a FEMA call center contract, leading two-thirds of calls to go unanswered—was “fake news.” “It’s just false. Those contracts were in place. No employees were off of work, every one of them was answering calls. False reporting, fake news,” she said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. YouTube Video According to the Times’ report, FEMA laid off hundreds of employees at disaster assistance call centers because Noem did not renew their contracts, which needed her personal signature for renewal since she changed DHS policy for any contract over $100,000—a pittance when it comes to disaster relief needs. According to the report:  On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls. That evening, however, Ms. Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said that Noem must now provide evidence that she approved these contracts. “Show us the receipts that you extended those contracts. Turn over documents detailing exactly when you renewed those contracts. There needs to be bipartisan oversight and Congressional hearings over these truly unacceptable failures,” she wrote on X. The Guadalupe River flows past a makeshift memorial on July 12. Similarly, three House Oversight Committee Democrats requested that FEMA provide a “detailed and comprehensive list of every contract, grant, or other funding request from DHS and/or FEMA to Secretary Noem related to the July 2025 flooding in Central Texas, including the date the request was made and the date that it was approved or denied by Secretary Noem.” Ultimately, the failure to renew FEMA disaster assistance call center contracts is Noem’s latest blunder in responding to the Texas floods, which have now claimed at least 130 lives, with more than 160 people still missing. Noem also failed to approve a contract for urban search and rescue teams, slowing efforts for 72 hours after the floods, according to a report from CNN. Noem also claimed that this was false.  “Fake news, CNN again. It’s absolutely trash, what they are doing by saying that,” Noem said on Fox News. YouTube Video But in trying to claim that the report was false, a DHS spokesperson actually admitted that it took 3 days for hundreds of search and rescue staffers to try to recover flood survivors, confirming CNN’s reporting. And while Noem was twiddling her thumbs over approving FEMA contracts, she herself has been blowing through DHS funding for her own vanity projects, spending hundreds of millions of dollars cosplaying as a law enforcement officer during ICE raids and Coast Guard missions. She has also spent money to pose in front of immigrants detained in El Salvador’s notoriously violent CECOT prison. She also requested a new $50 million private jet to use to travel around and perform more stunts to scare immigrants. Turns out that President Donald Trump’s appointment of wildly unqualified egomaniacs is now having deadly consequences for Americans.

President Donald Trump showed up at the FIFA Club World Cup Finals in New Jersey on Sunday, and it was just embarrassing all around. From the stadium booing him to his comically try-hard attempt to insert himself into the victory celebration, the whole thing made him look like the grasping buffoon he is.  After Chelsea FC pulled off an upset, beating Paris Saint-Germain FC, the expected winners, 3-0, they took to the pitch for the award ceremony. Enter Trump, who decided he should hand out medals and shove himself into the middle of the Chelsea squad as they gathered to receive the trophy for winning the Club Cup.  FIFA President Gianni Infantino eventually had to pull him back so the players could celebrate without Trump. Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, named the top player of the tournament after scoring two of Chelsea’s three goals, was as perplexed as everyone else about this, the Associated Press reported. “I knew he was going to be here, but I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy, so I was a bit confused.” Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, named the top player of the tournament after scoring two of Chelsea’s three goals, was as confused as everyone else about Trump handing out trophies. You know what else is confusing? That the trophy Chelsea was hoisting may be a replica, because according to Trump, Infantino gave him the real trophy during a March White House visit and told him he could keep it. Sure, seems fine.  Trump was booed when he walked onto the pitch. He was booed when he was shown on the Jumbotron. He was booed during the national anthem. Despite this, wannabe state media outlet the New York Post ran with a piece saying Trump was greeted by huge applause.  This isn’t the first time Trump’s insertion of himself into the world of sports was equal parts comical and gross. Who can forget his trip to the 2025 Super Bowl, where he apparently left, pouting, at halftime?  And last month, at the start of the FIFA Club World Cup, Italian soccer powerhouse team Juventus visited the White House, where Trump buttonholed them about trans athletes, asking whether a woman could make their team. When the team’s general manager explained that Juventus also had a very good women’s team, Trump responded: “But they should be playing with women, right? You know, one of those things.” Trump showing up at the FIFA Club World Cup was pretty rich after his administration declared that Customs and Border Patrol agents would act as security for the first Cup game in Miami; An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told the media that non-Americans should bring papers documenting their immigration status. Or that federal agents tried to bully their way into Dodger Stadium before a scheduled game while in the midst of terrorizing Los Angeles. Or that the administration insists that soccer-related tattoos are proof of membership in the notorious MS-13 gang and justifies deporting people.  Trump’s immigration crackdown means that even American sports teams now have to warn their non-American players to carry papers documenting their status. Who doesn’t love their sports events with a side of “papers, please?” and the continual looming threat of deportation? When your entire administration is focused on eradicating multiculturalism and making white supremacy the law of the land, showing up at sporting events that celebrate that very thing is ridiculous. Stay the hell home, man.

While on a trip to Disneyland in California on Saturday with his wife and children, Vice President JD Vance rode the theme park’s ride that’s most associated with racial reconciliation, despite Vance railing for years against “woke” culture. Vance was caught on video jogging toward his children—and was mocked for not having an “alpha male” running style despite the right’s obsession with phony masculinity—and riding  “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure,” which opened in November 2024. Vice President JD Vance riding Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at Disneyland this morning pic.twitter.com/In7ZWQBedB — Matt (@DisneyScoopGuy) July 12, 2025 The ride, which is based on the film “The Princess and the Frog” featuring the Black princess Tiana, replaced “Splash Mountain,” which was based on the classic Disney film “Song of the South.” Disney decided to refurbish the ride to make a break with that film’s racist past. “Song of the South” has been controversial since it was first released in 1946 for depicting a falsely idyllic setting on a southern plantation following slavery. According to the NAACP, the film “helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery.” When it announced that Tiana would become the new theme of the ride, Disney said, “The new concept is inclusive—one that all of our guests can connect with and be inspired by, and it speaks to the diversity of the millions of people who visit our parks each year.” People riding “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure” This is precisely the sort of inclusive racial reconciliation that has been under sustained attack by the Trump administration since Day 1. President Donald Trump and Vance have used the terminology “woke,” which was originally used by Black activists to discuss racial awareness, as pejorative, falsely claiming that addressing racism is discriminatory. And they’ve used their war on “wokeness” as a cover for attacking government efforts to address racism and to push bigoted policies and rhetoric. Before he rode the log flume ride, enjoying the newly “woke” theme park attraction, Vance attacked Disney for being culturally aware. Vance was part of the right-wing attack on Disney led by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of his failed presidential campaign. In 2022, Vance claimed that Disney had “declared war on America’s children” and complained a year later that Disney was “woke” and supported immigration policies that stole from U.S. citizens. California Gov. Gavin Newsom mocked Vance’s Disney trip, writing, “Tired: trashing California for political purposes. Wired: visiting & vacationing in California more than your home state this year.” Newsom also noted that many of the people who work at Disneyland are immigrants and contrasted that with the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities. Vance’s visit also attracted the attention of protesters against the Trump administration’s ongoing abuse of immigrant communities. Protesters outside the Grand Californian Hotel at the Disneyland Resort today where Vice President JD Vance is staying for the weekend. 🎥: @huntersowards — Matt Desmond (@disneyscoopguy.bsky.social) 2025-07-12T03:46:58.172Z The Disney trip underlined another facet of Vance’s character that has triggered mockery and criticism in the past: his lack of principles. He once called Trump “America’s Hitler” and described himself as a “never Trump guy,” but he threw those criticisms to the side when he was given a shot at being Trump’s vice president. Now, despite being part of the right’s disingenuous anti-Disney campaign, Vance was clearly happy to enjoy a “woke” moment at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Andrew Cuomo just won’t stop. The disgraced former governor of New York announced Monday that he is pursuing a third-party run for New York City mayor, despite having faced a tough loss to Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary last month. “As my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and get in the game, and that is what I’m going to do,” Cuomo said in a new campaign video.  Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a rally in New York on July 2. Cuomo will appear on the general election ballot under the independent “Fight and Deliver” party—a fallback name he created in case he lost the Democratic nomination. His return sets the stage for a hectic five-way general election against Mamdani, embattled Mayor Eric Adams (now running as an independent), Republican Curtis Sliwa, and independent Jim Walden. The former governor is expected to compete primarily with Adams for moderate and business-minded voters who might be worried about Mamdani’s democratic socialist platform, which includes a rent freeze for stabilized apartments and free citywide bus service. Cuomo entered the Democratic primary as the front-runner. He had widespread name recognition, major labor endorsements, and backing from the real estate industry. But his limp comeback pitch, in which he rarely engaged in interviews or unscripted interactions with voters, crumbled under Mamdani’s energized progressive base and a surge of grassroots support. A coordinated “Don’t Rank Cuomo” campaign also hurt his chances in the race, which used ranked-choice voting. (The general election will not use ranked choice.) In the end, Mamdani beat Cuomo by more than 12 percentage points in the final round of voting. Datawrapper Content Now Cuomo is counting on a broader general-election coalition—independents, disillusioned Democrats, and institutional allies—to block Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence. But the journey ahead is difficult. Cuomo carries baggage that led to his resignation as governor in 2021, including numerous sexual harassment allegations and a revived Justice Department probe into his COVID-19 crisis management. In his latest video, Cuomo focused on Mamdani, ignoring the other candidates altogether. “Only 13% of New Yorkers voted in the June primary. The general election is in November, and I am in it to win it,” Cuomo said. “My opponent, Mr. Mamdani, offers slick slogans but no real solutions.” Meanwhile, Mamdani’s team brushed it off. New York Mayor Eric Adams, shown on Feb. 11. “While Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are tripping over themselves to cut backroom deals with billionaires and Republicans, Zohran Mamdani is focused on making this city more affordable for New Yorkers,” said a Mamdani campaign spokesperson. “That’s the choice this November.” Still, Cuomo’s spot on the ballot isn’t guaranteed. According to The New York Times, sources close to his campaign say he might withdraw by early September if polling shows he isn’t the strongest opponent to Mamdani. If that happens, he’s expected to push other challengers to do the same. (Adams and Sliwa have both said they’ll stay in regardless.) With Democrats outnumbering Republicans nearly 6 to 1 in the city, Mamdani remains the favorite. And some of Cuomo’s former allies have jumped ship and backed Mamdani. Others, especially among the city’s wealthiest and the luxury real estate industry, are still looking for the best way to stop the democratic socialist and prefer to see the field narrow behind either Adams or Cuomo. The general election is scheduled for Nov. 4. Whether Cuomo will still be in the race by then remains to be seen.

PoliticusUSA is reader-supported news that you can rely on. You can support our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now House Democrats aren’t going to sleep. They are going to work. That is the message that is being sent by how Democrats plan to spend their time trying to win back the majority on the ground by hammering House Republicans in their districts for supporting Trump’s wildly unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told Punchbowl News what Democrats will be doing as he visited Louisiana, which is the home state of Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Punchbowl News reported: Jeffries said Democrats will hold more speeches, rallies and marches, plus town hall events in GOP districts. Jeffries is planning to visit districts in New York, New Jersey, California and the Midwest. We asked Jeffries if the reconciliation vote changes the size of the House battlefield by bringing redder districts into reach for Democrats. The DCCC has identified 35 GOP-held districts on their target list. Jeffries said the bill would “further complicate” Republicans’ efforts to hold the House but declined to say if it would change the map. “That vote will haunt them and we’re gonna tattoo their support for the One Big Ugly Law on the forehead of every single vulnerable House Republican in America,” Jeffries asserted. Republicans have the majority in the House because they won districts in blue states like Illinois, New Jersey, California, and New York. If Democrats win some districts in red states, they could build a massive majority, but winning the majority itself will involve taking back seats in blue states that slipped away in 2022 and 2024. The strategy of putting House Democratic leaders and well-known faces on the ground in Republican-held districts appears to be a good one that is working. When a Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, or any others come to Republican-held districts, they get local media attention and they motivate Democrats along with Independents while having conversations that Republicans don’t want to have about their decision to choose Trump over their constituents. Data shows that face-to-face contact with voters is the most effective way to secure their support. There will be plenty of time to run ads in 2026, but the Democrats are laying the groundwork in 2025 and doing what needs to be done to win back the majority in 2026. What do you think about the Democratic plan to hold marches, rallies, and town halls in GOP districts? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

The World Witnessed A Declining President Trump’s meeting at the White House was supposed to be about aid to Ukraine. While NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was able to keep the president focused on Ukraine, everything was okay. Trump announced that the US is providing more weapons to Ukraine through NATO, but it was when Trump was asked if he viewed providing more assistance to Ukraine as a path to peace that the floodgates opened. Video: The president said: I think this is a chance at getting peace or it’s just going to be the same thing. And I have to tell you, Europe has a lot of spirit for this war. A lot of people, you know, when I first got involved, I really didn’t think they did, but they do. And I saw that a month ago when you were there, most of you many of you were there. The level of esprit de corps spirit that they have is amazing. They really think it’s a very, very important thing to do or they wouldn’t be doing. Look, they’re agreeing to just, you know, they’re paying for everything. We’re not paying any more. We have an ocean separating us. I said, we have a problem. We have. We make the best stuff, but we can’t keep doing this. And Biden should have done this years ago. He should have done it from the beginning. But he didn’t. Read more

PoliticusUSA is independent news that you can depend on. Please support our work by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now House Republicans aren’t done cutting Medicaid, and they have added a new target to their hit list. By the end of the year, House Republicans are also planning to cut Medicare. Bloomberg reported: House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington in an interview with Bloomberg said Republicans will seek deeper cuts to Medicaid, new spending reductions in Medicare and fix any errors inserted into the US tax code by the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” “I think we will do one before the end of the year,” Arrington said. “It’s going to be a more targeted set of reforms.” The budget chairman said sees the follow-on legislation as a chance to secure Medicare spending cuts he sought but couldn’t win in the Trump tax and spending package. High among his goals, he said, is reducing reimbursements to hospitals through a site-neutral payment system that pays the same rate whether a procedure is done at a clinic or doctor’s office. PoliticusUSA is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. By ‘reforms,’ Arrington means cuts in healthcare. If Medicare reimbursements get cut, that would be a death sentence for many rural hospitals. If you thought that the last reconciliation bill that Republicans passed and Trump signed into law was the worst of it, you were wrong. It is as if taking healthcare away from 17 million Americans wasn’t enough, so Republicans are moving on to attacking the remaining people on Medicaid and coming for Medicare. These cuts could cost Republicans their House majority, but these are ideologues who are on a mission to destroy the social safety net and seemingly won’t stop until all national wealth has been redistributed to the top 1%. What do you think about the House GOP plan to come for Medicaid next? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s ham-fisted reversal on his promise to release a secret list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients has accomplished something long considered impossible by virtually everybody, including Trump himself: He has finally exceeded his followers’ credulity. The Epstein matter is so crucial to Trump’s base, and the excuse offered is so flimsy, that the about-face has raised questions within perhaps the most gullible movement in American history. Over the past decade, Trump’s hold on his fan base has been a mysterious and unchanging fact of American political life, the inspiration for innumerable journalistic diner safaris and the source of agonized self-reflection on the left. Trump understands that his most committed fans will believe almost anything he tells them. Any discomfiting fact is instantly dismissed as a lie coming from the “Radical Left” (Democrats), the “FAKE NEWS” (non-Republican-aligned media), the “Deep State” (any government statistic or official finding), or “RINOs” (whenever a Republican has the temerity to question him). [Kaitlyn Tiffany: Conspiracy theorists are turning on the president] Crucial to this cultlike epistemology is that Trump himself defines what is true, and can alter the nature of that reality at his whim. A journalist or politician may go from Well Respected to Failing Loser and back again as many times as needed. Extravagant promises (to give everybody “terrific” health care, to end the Russia-Ukraine war in a day, to bring down grocery prices) could be issued and then memory-holed. The MAGA-endorsed conspiracy theory that Epstein was blackmailing powerful people with tacit government support was not crazy. (Unproven, yes. Impossible, no.) The crazy part was that this theory had been assimilated into the pro-Trump worldview. Epstein had been Trump’s buddy. Trump had publicly acknowledged more than 20 years ago his awareness of Epstein’s preference for young girls. Epstein came into the custody of the Justice Department and died in prison in 2019, while Trump was president. Trump said “I wish her well” of Epstein’s lieutenant, Ghislaine Maxwell—an odd thing to say of an alleged child sex trafficker. In a rational world, the Epstein saga would have been an obsession of Trump’s enemies, not his supporters. And so Trump naturally must have assumed that his promises to release Epstein’s records would go the same way all his other promises had: straight into the memory hole. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed in February that she had the fabled Epstein client list on her desk, and that she would release it. After the Department of Justice claimed that there was no client list at all,  Trump instructed his followers that the issue was now dead. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he scolded a reporter after the DOJ announcement. “This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking—we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things, and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.” When his supporters continued raising questions, Trump floated a new line on Truth Social: The files did exist, but they were anti-Trump disinformation created by the Democrats. “Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?” he wrote. “They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files?” Not only did this new line blatantly contradict the repeated promises to release the files that Trump’s allies had made, but it was not even internally consistent. Barack Obama had concocted the Epstein files to smear Trump … but Democrats had refused to make them public, for some reason? And because the “Radical Left Lunatics” had kept them secret, Trump needed to do the same thing? [Read: We still don’t know what to do with the endless stream of Trump’s lies] But whatever. Trump’s lies often lack even the veneer of plausibility. His devotees have generally not made him work very hard to maintain their trust. You could almost picture Trump lazily mouthing the same tropes—“fake news,” “Russia, Russia, Russia”—expecting the same result. Except this time, Trump pushed the buttons, and nothing happened. Trump fans just grew angrier; how could Trump pretend that a pledge to uncover a sinister cabal had never mattered at all? Why, exactly, this reversal dismayed his followers when a thousand precious reversals had bounced right off them is hard to say precisely. One possible reason is that, compared with promises about normal policy issues, the Epstein saga is both easier to understand and generates unusually strong feelings; the sexual abuse of underage girls is more visceral than more abstract harms of, say, taking away peoples’ access to health insurance, and this subject is central to the QAnon movement. The Epstein saga also seems to hold a load-bearing place in the populist mythology, explaining why the “deep state” is out to get Trump. Casually retconning the narrative, so that the Epstein files cease to be the secret document that will expose Trump’s enemies but rather become a libel written by those enemies, is too wrenching a shift for even them to accept. It is probably too much to expect that Trump’s base will defect en masse. But we can be thankful for small victories. After years of complete impunity, Trump has finally discovered that his power to brainwash his idolaters is finite.