Stripping away names and only using titles in the Trump 2.0 era is something of an insanity inducing exercise. The prestige of these people’s positions in relation to their fundamental buffoonery creates a cognitive dissonance that has become embedded in the fabric of our political reality. We should not have to deal with serious issues in the unserious manner that we do, and yet, here we are. The Jeffrey Epstein case is an incredibly grave one that put a conspirator in prison for 20 years, and any healthy polity would approach it with a posture proportional to the nature of Epstein’s horrific crimes against over 1,000 victims.
But we don’t have a healthy polity, the nature of our politics won’t allow for it. We have a politics defined by names like Markwayne Mullin and Donald Trump, doing one of the least gracious tightrope walks in history. Trump is in the midst of an Epstein heel turn so shambolic and shady it cost him significant goodwill with his own cult members (speaking of heel turns, I would be remiss if I did not point out today that Splinter lived longer than Hulk Hogan did). Trump may have even lost his #2 at the FBI to woke mental health days over his U-turn on the Epstein case. The dumbest, most popular podcasters alive are all giving their audience their generation’s Walter Cronkite condemning Vietnam moment, telling their audiences that their God-King is “insulting our intelligence.”
And now Congress is adjourning early, per the GOP Leader, specifically because they don’t want to “play politics” with the Epstein files. All while Trump’s lawyer goes to talk to Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell who thinks she never got a fair trial. I wonder what they’re going to talk about! If it’s anything like what Sen. Mullin admitted to on the floor of Congress today, it’s some kind of “cover” for a man who Epstein once said was “his best friend.”
Mullin blocking Gallego resolution calling for release of the Epstein files: What we’re simply trying to do is give [Trump] cover
[image or embed]
— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) July 24, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Mullin has dear leader’s boot all the way down his throat in this clip, as he is following his master’s orders to try to tie the Epstein documents Trump promised into the fake Russia hoax and all his other invented legal grievances. It is an impressive feat of cognitive dissonance by Trumpworld, perhaps one enhanced by the dissonance coursing through the air around us, to pretend as if anyone but Donald Trump and his whole MAGA universe put the Epstein documents into the zeitgeist. The right-wing loves the Epstein case because he actually gives evidentiary basis to their insane Q-driven worldview they have been constructing around him the last few years. They are not letting go of this now that they know there’s meat on this bone, and some of them are clearly considering the real possibility that it’s Trump’s meat (although if South Park is to be believed, it’s not very substantial).
Ever since the failed July 4th weekend flip-flop that echoed throughout the broverse, no one on planet Earth has come off looking more guilty about anything than Trump. I got home the other day and saw the trash open and some barbecue sauce on my dog’s paws and am less certain she got into the trash than what Trump’s 180 has strongly suggested: that he saw something unflattering in the Epstein files related to him that he would like everyone to stop talking about.
And we know he’s in the Epstein case files, because, well, duh, but also because the Wall Street Journal just reported that the Department of Justice told him in May that he was in them. None of these reports are damning enough on their own, or even together, but if Trump weren’t acting like a man with something to hide, maybe his ‘this is more fake news Russia hoax’ bleating may have an audience. Given that his polls are slinking towards his all-time lows as MAGA’s revolt continues unabated, it doesn’t seem like it has much of an audience outside the empty suits in Congress who have abandoned their personal agency to serve at the feet of dear leader.
GET SPLINTER RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
The Truth Hurts
