Transcript: “Furious” Trump Spiraling Over Epstein Mess, Allies Admit
McGowan: Yeah, it’s absolute chaos, right? So Trump has not only lost the narrative and the ability to control it, but he [also] does not have control of his own staff or advisers or cabinet at this stage. And when people are sensing what is very much on the surface right now about fractures within their base of support that they have been incredibly.… There’s been so much hubris essentially about their mandate after the election to lead, etc., and now their base is turning on them. Their biggest talkers, pundits, podcasters are turning on them. You are seeing actual individuals within the administration turn on them with these leaks. And so they are in the most vulnerable position we’ve seen this administration in.
At the same time—I read this in Axios this morning in this sort of bloviating way, I thought—at a time where Trump really has been delivering a lot of “wins” in terms of his other campaign promises to his base, that’s why he’s also furious: He’s not getting any credit for it. So now he’s really experiencing what it is like to not actually be able to control the story or control your team. And this is where it’s going to get really interesting because the story, as we said, is not going away. So who is going to really defect? Who is going to get thrown out, because we know how he reacts when he’s angry, right? He starts firing. He starts demonizing. And he’s been doing his distraction strategy, and it isn’t working. So we’re going to start to see him, I think, act even more and more irrational, if that’s possible. I hate to say that there is fun and joy in this—but for those of us who have known what an empty suit he has been on so many of the promises he made to his base, there is a level of enjoyment, I think, we are all allowed at watching this go down. But I do think it’s incredibly important that all of us in media and advocacy also help keep this story and this momentum going.
Sargent: I want to get to that in a sec, but your point about his distraction strategy failing just reminded me of something that I think is essential. One of the sub-narratives of this idea of Trump as master media manipulator has always been that he’s got this magical distraction powers. And this is something pundits were incredibly credulous about for a long time. He would go out there and he would just try to change the subject and everyone would say, Wow, he’s distracting us. He’s weaving his spell again. And it was always garbage; that stuff doesn’t actually necessarily work for voters. But here, we’re seeing it fail in a particularly glaring and obvious way, right?
