00:00Next, President Donald Trump lashing out at his own supporters over their demands for the Epstein files to be made public.
00:07It's rumored there are revelations that might be harmful to Trump over his frequentation of the billionaire sex offender who died in prison in mysterious circumstances in August 2019.
00:17Photographs of Trump and Epstein together are being widely shared.
00:20While this per se proves nothing, it is fueling conspiracy theories that have forced Trump to speak out.
00:26Let's bring in Fraser Jackson, our correspondent with his finger on the pulse in Washington.
00:30Fraser, good evening to you. Trump has enjoyed stoking conspiracy theories himself, hasn't he?
00:34Not so happy at being on the receiving end.
00:38Yeah, it certainly seems that the flames of this that he has been peddling for many years, as have many on the right-hand sides of US politics,
00:46and especially the MAGA movement, well, now those flames that he's been fanning are licking out the doors of the Oval Office.
00:51Now, Trump's tone on this has shifted significantly in the last few days.
00:56He kind of dismissed everything a few days ago.
00:59The 12th of July, just last Saturday, Trump wrote,
01:01What's going on with my boys and, in some cases, gals?
01:04They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a fantastic job.
01:09We're on one team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening.
01:11That, of course, after the Justice Department released a report saying that there was no Jeffrey Epstein client list,
01:18and that, basically, the Epstein files are basically something of nothing.
01:23Now, Donald Trump told his supporters not to waste time and energy on Epstein.
01:27He said that he was somebody that nobody cares about.
01:29But the online conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theories themselves have not stopped,
01:35and that ultimately led to Donald Trump getting ratioed for the first time in the history of his social media platform, Truth Social.
01:43That, for people who are not so au fait with Internet language, means when more people comment on something rather than liking a post,
01:50which, on the Internet, tends to signal disagreement with that post.
01:53And now, Trump has changed his tune completely.
01:57He is now saying that the Epstein files are a hoax created by the Democrats,
02:02which some Democrats are arguing makes no sense,
02:05because it effectively would have to mean that Democrats would have had to create these fake files to destroy Donald Trump's career,
02:11but then allow him to be elected twice and never release these files,
02:15and then wait for him to get into power to release the files himself.
02:18So, a significant chunk of Trump's own supporters aren't buying that line either.
02:23Well, Trump now lashing out at those supporters who say that the Epstein conspiracy theory is being covered up now by Donald Trump himself.
02:30He said that these people were stupid Republicans.
02:33He said my past supporters have bought into this, sorry for this language, bullshit, hook, line and sinker,
02:40continuing that let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats' work.
02:44Don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success,
02:48because I don't want their support anymore.
02:51This, then, has lit a fire in MAGA world,
02:53and a lot of people watching onwards have said that this is the biggest rift that they have seen in Donald Trump's political coalition,
03:00and Donald Trump is actually adding fuel to the flames now by using this kind of language
03:05and enraging a lot of the people who support him the most online.
03:10Is this, then, making MAGA, make America great again, the movement that Trump is, well, creating,
03:16is this making MAGA doubt their own president right now?
03:19I think, really, Mark, this is a very interesting moment.
03:24This is something that we've not seen since the emergence of the MAGA movements over a decade ago,
03:29around a decade ago now, and I think that's really because of one thing.
03:32This is not a kind of economic policy or a foreign policy.
03:36This really is striking at the heart of what the MAGA movement is.
03:40A lot of the very early believers and the most hardcore believers of MAGA
03:44really believe that there was a democratic deep state that is basically trying to protect an elite circle of paedophiles.
03:54Remember Hillary Clinton and the Pizzagate and the pizza parlor?
03:57That has been going on for years, and now Donald Trump, who put himself forward as the man who was going to,
04:03yes, albeit imperfectly, he was going to cast light on this and dispel the deep state
04:07and be the person that went against what these politicians have been saying and basically outed everybody.
04:13Now they see him, some of these people on the right, they see him as being part of that establishment
04:18who is now saying that the Epstein files don't exist and don't mean anything.
04:23So now a lot of people are starting to turn against Donald Trump,
04:27and you just have to look at the replies on True Social to see that.
04:30One person that I looked at last night in Donald Trump's latest tweet about this,
04:34he said,
04:35So prove it was a hoax instead of bashing your so-called past supporters because this isn't helping your midterm chances.
04:42Another person said,
04:43Well, why was Epstein in prison then?
04:45How about Ghislaine Maxwell all for a hoax?
04:47I don't think so.
04:48This is the hill we all die on.
04:50Another person said,
04:53Now remember, these are the words coming from people who liked Donald Trump enough to download and make an account on his own social media website.
05:14And now these are the kind of replies that he's getting to his posts.
05:18And each one of these comments is getting thousands of likes on them as well.
05:22So there certainly is a change in momentum here.
05:24And a lot of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters in the kind of MAGA influencer circles
05:29are saying that this could very well consume Donald Trump's presidency.
05:34And especially as the midterms now are just over a year away in 2026 in November.
05:39Fraser Jackson in Washington.
05:41It's never a quiet moment, is it?
05:42Thank you very much indeed for that explanation about what we could term Epstein get, I suppose.
05:47And the fact is Trump did frequent Epstein.
05:49There are photographs that prove that, videos that prove that too.
05:52We've been showing them during Fraser's explanation of the situation.
05:56Do they prove anything?
05:57That's the question, I suppose.
05:58But nonetheless, perhaps some clarification should be coming from the president.
