WASHINGTON, July 26 \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s super powers as a public figure have long included the ability to redirect, evade and deny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Republican\u2019s well-worn methods of changing the subject when a tough topic stings politically are not working as his White House fends off persistent unrest from his usually loyal base about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has scolded reporters, claimed ignorance and offered distractions in an effort to quash questions about Epstein and the suspicions still swirling around the disgraced financier\u2019s case years after his 2019 death in prison. The demand for answers has only grown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor a president and an administration that\u2019s very good at controlling a narrative, this is one that\u2019s been harder,\u201d said Republican strategist Erin Maguire, a former Trump campaign spokeswoman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike political crises that dogged Trump\u2019s first term, including two impeachments and a probe into alleged campaign collusion with Russia, the people propelling the push for more transparency on Epstein have largely been his supporters, not his political foes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has fed his base with conspiracy theories for years, including the false \u201cbirther\u201d claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump\u2019s advisers fanned conspiracies about Epstein, too, only to declare them moot upon entering office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That has not gone over well with the president\u2019s right-leaning base, which has long believed the government was covering up Epstein\u2019s ties to the rich and powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDonald Trump\u2019s been running a Ponzi scheme based on propaganda for the better part of a decade and it\u2019s finally catching up to him,\u201d said Geoff Duncan, a Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia and Trump critic. \u201cThe far right element is just dug in. They\u2019re hell bent on getting this information out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House has dismissed reporting about Trump\u2019s ties to Epstein as \u201cfake news,\u201d though it has acknowledged his name appears in documents related to the Epstein case. Trump and Epstein were friends for years before falling out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only people who can\u2019t seem to shake this story from their one-track minds are the media and Democrats,\u201d said White House spokesman Harrison Fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before leaving for a trip to Scotland yesterday, the president again urged people to turn their attention elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople should really focus on how well the country is doing,\u201d Trump told reporters, lamenting that scrutiny was not being given to others in Epstein\u2019s orbit. \u201cThey don\u2019t talk about them, they talk about me. I have nothing to do with the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The art of distraction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump in recent weeks has employed a typical diversion playbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He chastised a reporter for asking about Epstein in the White House Cabinet Room. He claimed in the Oval Office that he was not paying close attention to the issue. And, with help from Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence, he explosively accused Obama of treason for how he treated intelligence in 2016 about Russian interference in the US election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Thursday, Trump took his distraction tour to the Federal Reserve, where he tussled with Chair Jerome Powell about construction costs and pressed for lower interest rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That, said Republican strategist Brad Todd, was more effective than focusing on Obama in 2016, which voters had already litigated by putting Trump back in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Tulsi Gabbard look backward, I think, is not the way for them to pivot,\u201d Todd said, noting that Trump\u2019s trip to the Fed highlighted the issue of economic affordability and taking on a Washington institution. \u201cIf I was him I\u2019d go to the Fed every day until rates are cut.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats have seized on Trump\u2019s efforts to move on, sensing a political weakness for the president and divisions in the Republican Party that they can exploit while their own political stock is low in the wake of last year\u2019s drubbing at the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Reuters\/Ipsos poll this month showed most Americans think Trump\u2019s administration is hiding information about Epstein, creating an opportunity for Democrats to press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s supporters and many Democrats are eager to see a release of government files related to Epstein and his case, which the Justice Department initially promised to deliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYesterday was another example of the Trump folks trying to throw as much stuff against the wall to avoid the Epstein files,\u201d Mark Warner, a Democratic US senator from Virginia, said in a post on X on Thursday about Gabbard\u2019s accusations against Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump allies see the administration\u2019s efforts to change topic as a normal part of an all-out-there strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey are always going at 100 miles an hour. Every department, every cabinet secretary, everybody is out there at full speed blanketing the area with news,\u201d Republican strategist Maguire said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has weathered tougher periods before, and his conservative base, despite its frustration over the files, is largely pleased with Trump\u2019s work on immigration and the economy. In a July Reuters\/Ipsos poll, 56 per cent of Republican respondents favoured the administration\u2019s immigration workplace raids, while 24 per cent were opposed and 20 per cent unsure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pollster Frank Luntz noted that Trump had faced felony convictions and other criminal charges but still won re-election last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been in this very same situation several times before and he has escaped every time,\u201d Luntz said. \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON, July 26 \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s super powers as a public figure have long included the ability to redirect, evade and deny. But the Republican\u2019s well-worn methods of changing the subject when a tough topic stings politically are not working as his White House fends off persistent unrest from his usually loyal base about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,10,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-international-news","category-news","category-science-it-ai-military-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2134,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions\/2134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}