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Will MAGA believe a lying child predator?

Will MAGA believe a lying child predator?

Maybe!

Amanda Marcotte
August 26, 2025

MAGA isn’t a great market for selling tight jeans

MAGA rushed forward to defend Sydney Sweeney against the largely imaginary liberal attacks on her American Eagle “good genes” ad. That helped Donald Trump and Fox News, but so far, it doesn’t seem to be going quite as well for Sweeney or American Eagle. Her new movie bombed over the weekend, and foot traffic at American Eagle has reportedly declined since that ad made headlines.

I’m not entirely surprised. MAGA dudes may be excited by the ad, but American Eagle needs young women if they want to sell jeans. Nothing is less hip, or less appealing to a younger female demographic, than a brand associated with screeching online incels. I feel sure that time will show that reactionary men in the C-suites placed their bets on MAGA marketing as the next hot thing, but will learn the hard way you can’t sell tight jeans to a crowd better known for wearing baggy shorts from Walmart.

Will Trump voters accept the word of a lying child molester? Maybe!

The White House released the transcript of Ghislaine Maxwell’s “interview” with Trump defense attorney-turned-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Friday. It makes clear that the administration doesn’t believe that the conspiracy theorists who make up much of the MAGA base have moved on from Jeffrey Epstein. But for those who need hard data, we have it: Polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that even Trump voters aren’t happy with the White House cover-up of the Epstein files.

Granted, a lot of Republicans have burrowed into partisan loyalty, with 42% willing to pretend that everything is peachy keen with Trump suppressing files in which he reportedly features — a fact that should be no surprise, considering the president’s long and loyal friendship with the deceased sex trafficker. But another 43% aren’t happy about the situation. Unsurprisingly, 70% of independents and 91% of Democrats think this situation stinks.

This poll was taken before the White House released the Maxwell interview, in which Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and fellow sexual predator claims she never saw Trump do anything “inappropriate.” This should be obvious, but Maxwell’s word is worth less than nothing. She also claimed that Trump and Maxwell weren’t “close friends” — which is clearly false — and insisted on her own innocence.

In another non-surprise, Republicans are trying to frame this interview with a convicted child-sex predator as somehow an exoneration of Trump. This is self-evidently stupid, but that’s no barrier for the MAGA base. Up until now, at least, the conspiracy base has rejected most of Trump’s attempts to make this scandal go away. Will they fall for it now? I wish I knew for sure. One thing is for sure: Democrats can’t afford to let this go. As soon as Congress is back in session, they should start proposing more bills demanding the release of the Epstein files. Keep this in the news as long as possible heading into 2026, and don’t let anyone forget that Donald Trump is personally suppressing these files, and whatever they contain.

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Even when MAGA sees what we do, they don’t

My column on Monday was about Trump’s invasion of D.C., but also about an under-discussed aspect of modern politics: Even when both sides see the same thing, they can have wildly different interpretations. Because Trump and other MAGA leaders flat-out lie about everything, we’ve gotten used to debating facts these days: Who won the 2020 election? Are vaccines deadly? Is Trump secretly svelte and in great shape, despite the way he actually looks?

What strikes me about the online discourse over D.C., however, is that both sides are sharing similar videos of federal agents harassing innocent people. It’s just that MAGA thinks that’s awesome and liberals think it’s bad. It reminds me of how right-wingers can watch videos of Charlie Kirk losing debates to college kids, and high-five each other over how badly he “owned” them.

Something similar happened with JD Vance’s interview on “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker Sunday. In the eyes of people who aren’t pickle-brained, Vance came off like an utter tool, defending Trump’s failed “peace” talks with Ukraine and making excuses for the Justice Department’s harassment of John Bolton for the non-crime of saying mean things about Trump.

I often argue that MAGA people believe lies not because they are authentically confused, but because they only “believe” what justifies their fascist lust for power. Deep down inside, they know that Trump didn’t win in 2020 and that COVID-19 wasn’t a hoax. I get a lot of pushback from people who really want to believe these folks have been bamboozled and that if they just learn the facts, they’ll change.

Um, no. It’s impossible to listen to Vance talk and not hear him as a lying windbag with zero charisma. But the MAGA folks must all pretend that he “owned” Welker, because that’s what they need to say to score the day’s necessary political points of the day, at least in their imagination. Fascism is an anti-reality movement, and the response to that interview clearly illustrates that.