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Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was one of the first Democrats in leadership to see that there was an opportunity for his party in the MAGA demand of their president to release the Epstein files.
Jeffries saw an opening to not only split Trump from his congressional Republican protectors, but also to tie Epstein to the corruption of Trump and the Republican Party.
Leader Jeffries was right. He has been able to drive a wedge through Republicans and Trump is floundering.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) was the first to grab the issue in early July, and it was soon embraced by Jeffries, who has unified Democrats and told all of the Democratic committee leadership in the House to keep the Epstein pressure on.
Politico reported on the success of the Democratic strategy:
The strategy has effectively hijacked the House, derailed Hill Republicans’ agenda and forced Speaker Mike Johnson to send lawmakers packing for an early August recess. That’s not to mention embarrassing Trump in the process and exposing the surprising limits of his sway on a party he’s held in his clutches for the better part of a decade.
“We’ve been trying to say Trump is full of shit for years and it hasn’t really stuck, right? But something about this topic is making a healthy portion of MAGA world — particularly folks who are not ideologically aligned with Trump but kind of flirted with him last year when they pulled the lever for him — be like, ‘Yea, he’s definitely full of shit,’” a senior Democratic campaign aide boasted to me. (This aide and others in the story were granted anonymity to speak candidly about dynamics on the Hill.)
…
“Everyone’s always talking about Trump being ‘Teflon’ — obviously that’s because all Hill Republicans are pretty much a suit of armor for him, right? But in this instance, they’re not,” said a senior Democratic aide discussing the strategy. “And so it exposes him, I think, to more attacks that otherwise would be brushed off — and makes it easier for us to drag his numbers down while creating chaos among the Republicans.”
Democrats have been so successful that they forced Speaker Mike Johnson to shut down the House and send everyone home because the Speaker doesn’t want to hold any votes or debate on Epstein.
Trump’s power comes from the protection that Republicans in Congress give him, and on this issue, that protection is gone.
