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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The Epstein files consume Trump as he fails to change the topic [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-28
New York Times:
Competing Conspiracy Theories Consume Trump’s Washington President Trump is trying to divert attention from the Epstein conspiracy theory with a new-and-improved one about Barack Obama and treason. OK, so President Trump’s name is in the Jeffrey Epstein files. But who put it there? Could it possibly have been Barack Obama from his prison cell? Or a tranquilized Hillary Clinton? Oh wait, maybe it was etched onto the documents by Joe Biden’s magical autopen. Or is that mixing up different scandals? It’s so hard to keep up with the latest wild notions circulating in the capital and beyond. Washington is awash in conspiracy theories these days, a cascade of suspicion and intrigue promoted or denied in the Oval Office, ricocheting around Capitol Hill and cable news and propelled at warp speed across social media.
Dan Pfeiffer/The Message Box:
The Questions the Press Must Ask Trump about the Epstein Scandal Despite a ton of coverage, there is a lot that we still don't know about Trump's efforts to hide his relationship with a child sex trafficker My political career began at the moment when the scandal over Bill Clinton perjuring himself about an extramarital affair exploded onto the political scene (yes, I am very old and getting older by the minute). I was a White House intern at the time and vividly remember watching Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, get hammered with question after question about what Clinton was accused of doing. McCurry had to answer those questions—or very publicly refuse to comment—for the world to see. Whenever President Clinton had a public event, the White House press corps shouted questions at him, and his refusal to answer became a nightly news staple. Donald Trump’s government-wide effort to cover up information about his relationship with a notorious child sex trafficker is a major scandal—bigger than the one Clinton faced. And yet, Trump and his White House are not bombarded with the same daily questions that Clinton or any other president would have encountered. Trump is insulated from scrutiny because his aides simply ignore reporters. They don’t return phone calls or even offer a “no comment.” Trump has stacked the White House press pool and briefing room with compliant, pro-MAGA propagandists. This week—just 24 hours after the bombshell Wall Street Journal report that Trump had been briefed on his name appearing in the Epstein files—Trump took questions from the White House press pool, and no one asked him a single question about it.
x A new poll from Gallup this week found just 29% of political independents approve of how Trump is doing as president. That is a record low for him, even lower than his rating in Gallup's own data taken just after Jan. 6, 2021 — and almost as bad as Joe Biden's worst Gallup number — G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) July 27, 2025
G Elliott Morris:
Trump's approval with independents sinks below Biden's, Trump's post-Jan. 6 | Weekly roundup for July 27, 2025 Strikingly, Gallup finds that just 38% of Americans approve of how Trump is handling immigration, and 37% approve of his job on the economy — the two issues that probably won him the 2024 election. Trump has lost double digits on handling the federal budget and 6 points on trade/tariffs. The 37% rating is definitely headline-making, but it’s Trump’s approval with independents that caught my attention. According to Gallup, just 29% of independents — fewer than one in three swing voters — approve of how Trump is doing as president today. Here’s Gallup’s chart of approval by party affiliation:
x This is the story of his life, right here.
Caddy tosses a ball on the ground, then POTUS pretends it's the shot he made. pic.twitter.com/I4kJDh3CWN — Rogue POTUS Staff (@RoguePOTUSStaff) July 27, 2025
Lisa Rubin/X via Threadreader:
NEW: As the Senate prepares to vote on Emil Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit, two more whistleblowers have emerged, according to Whistleblower Aid and the Justice Connection. /1 As confirmed by a spokesperson for Senator Durbin, one of these whistleblowers — the one affiliated with Justice Connection, an organization by and for ex-DOJ staff, has provided evidence to Democratic staff of the Judiciary Committee. 2/ But according to two sources with direct knowledge, the other whistleblower, a former DOJ attorney represented by Whistleblower Aid, submitted a formal whistleblower complaint to DOJ’s Inspector General on May 2, more than six weeks before Reuveni’s letter was submitted. 3/ This whistleblower has not shared their complaint or underlying documents with any senators or staff but has notified Sens. Grassley & Durbin of their complaint through a June 13 letter encouraging them to ask the IG for the documentation. 4/ … This whistleblower’s report was made nearly 3 months ago—and Bove’s final vote is expected on Monday. Stay tuned. FIN.
x Percentage who say they're EXTREMELY MOTIVATED to vote in the next election
Oct. 2022
🔴 Republicans: 48%
🔵 Democrats: 44%
July 2025
🔵 Democrats: 72%
🔴 Republicans: 50%
CNN/SSRS | 7/10-13 | 1,057 A pic.twitter.com/3uv51h5pXm — InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) July 27, 2025
Noah Smith/Noahpinion:
MAGA doesn't build anything Why I think this political movement isn't going anywhere in the long term. I think it’s pretty uncontroversial to say that the MAGA movement is the most powerful and important political movement in America today, by a wide margin. Trump’s control of the presidency, and his unprecedented domination of the Republican Party, mean that even though MAGA isn’t a majority of Americans, it has complete control over the federal government. That control will diminish, but not disappear, if Democrats take back one or both houses of Congress next fall. In the meantime, despite falling popularity, MAGA reigns supreme. And yet I can’t help thinking that despite its current dominance, the MAGA movement doesn’t have much of a long-term future. It has managed to win some elections, by harnessing popular rage — against Democrats, against immigration, against educated elites, against economic conditions, etc. But rage doesn’t last forever. In order for a movement to have longevity, I think it needs to build something. Things like physical infrastructure, institutions, and culture have a lifetime that long exceeds the cascade of emotions that first brings a movement into being.
x Good piece by @Noahpinion on the emptiness at the core of MAGA. It has no positive constructive agenda. Also note that Trump's hatred of Biden and cultural jihad against green energy is hurting US manufacturing.
https://t.co/ElBOsdA6KN pic.twitter.com/rahW9IDPgT — Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) July 26, 2025
Robert McCoy/TNR:
Economists Are Seriously Alarmed About Official Data Under Trump A new poll of economists finds an overwhelming majority agree that the U.S. government’s official data on the economy is a big problem. As the Trump administration guts and otherwise interferes with federal statistical agencies, nearly 90 percent of economists recently surveyed by Reuters are concerned about the reliability of official government data on the economy. From July 11 to 24, Reuters polled economists—including “Nobel Laureates, former policymakers, academics from top U.S. universities, and economists from major banks, consultancies and think tanks”—and found that 89 of 100 of them “were concerned about the quality of official U.S. economic data,” with 41 saying they are “very concerned.”
x Perhaps notable amidst these terrible party favorability numbers for Ds is that the generic ballot in this poll is 46-43 D. R favorability is exactly the same as their generic ballot share, D ballot share is 13 pts higher than party favorability
https://t.co/KFT6sSIAaT — Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) July 27, 2025
Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson/Public Notice:
"There’s an appetite for change, and it’s not the kind of change Trump is building" Ben Wikler on opportunities ahead for Democrats. We caught up with Wikler earlier this month while he was vacationing near Lake Superior for a forward-looking conversation about the midterms, the harm Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will do to Wisconsin, and what Democrats all across the country can learn from Zohran Mamdani’s campaign. “Mamdani campaigned squarely on cost of living issues, which especially affect younger people who haven’t accumulated wealth throughout their lives. And he didn’t just talk about the problem. He laid out solutions,” Wikler said. “If you campaign with clear language and bold ideas that address the concerns that people wrestle with when they’re not thinking about politics, you can make breakthroughs with people who think the political system isn’t speaking to them.” A transcript of Wikler’s conversation with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
John Fuselgang, Cliff Schecter and David Shuster on How RWers Weaponize Religion:
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