WILL UPROAR OVER TRUMP’S SALACIOUS EPSTEIN BIRTHDAY DRAWING ALSO FIZZLE?

Is the latest uproar over Donald Trump also destined to fizzle? It can’t but bring a sense of deju vu. Once again, another story involving something Donald Trump did or is alleged to have done or said or is alleged to have said comes up. It sparks a furor. Pundits and social media predict it could negatively impact his political career or destroy it or wind up putting him behind bars. News cycles keep covering the story.

Then it starts to die down. Trump’s supremely loyal MAGA base inevitably rallies behind him. And, within weeks, the uproar has morphed into a fizzle.

Will this happen yet again? The catalyst is an explosive Wall Street Journal exclusive about a leather-bound Epstein 50th birthday album consisting of birthday greeting letters from Trump friends in 2003 collected by Epstein’s now-jailed girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. The underlying question now is: is the commander in chief a pedophile? So far MAGA world has demanded more from Tump on the so-called Epstein files.

But there are signs MAGA world may be falling in line.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.

The letter concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” he said.

“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”

He told the Journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article. “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he said.

Allegations that Epstein had been sexually abusing girls became public in 2006 and he was arrested that year. Epstein died in 2019 in jail after he was arrested a second time and charged with sex trafficking conspiracy.

Trump now says it’s full speed ahead in his plans to sue The Wall Street Journal, it’s editor and publisher Rupert Murdoch who, as many have pointed out, indeed had it in his power to kill the story.

President Donald Trump said Thursday he would sue the Wall Street Journal and its owner over a new bombshell report about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin the process of unsealing grand jury testimony in the disgraced financier’s criminal case.

“Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” Trump said on social media, though it’s unclear that a judge would approve the request. “This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!”

That post came less than an hour after the president responded to a report in the Journal alleging he had sent a racy birthday letter to Epstein. Trump said he had personally warned the Journal’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its editor in chief, Emma Tucker, that the letter was “fake” before the report was published, calling the story “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

“President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal,” Trump wrote o n social media hours after the Journal published its report.

In the immediate wake of the report’s publication, the White House rushed to decry it as false. Vice President JD Vance said on X it was “complete and utter bullshit” — echoing the expletive Trump used this week to describe the Epstein news cycle. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt — whom Trump said had also told Tucker the story was “fake” — called it a “hatchet job article” and claimed the outlet “refused to show us the letter and conceded they don’t even have it in their possession when we asked them to verify the alleged document.”

Meanwhile, the chances are good that that MAGA world will sooner or later fall into line and, in the end, will shrug off the latest scandal, “Epsteingate,” and/or parrot whatever defense Trump comes up with as part of it’s new talking and social media written talking points. Andrew Egger in The Bulwalk:

The idea that Murdoch and the Journal would publish a story like this—knowing Trump’s penchant for retributive lawsuits—without being on rock-solid legal footing is laughable; a small army of lawyers no doubt inspected every word of the report. Meanwhile, Trump is the only alleged contributor to deny to the Journal that his letter was real; billionaire Leslie Wexner declined to comment, and attorney Alan Dershowitz simply said that “it’s been a long time and I don’t recall the content of what I may have written.”

In a sane world, Trump’s supporters who have been dismayed by his handling of the Epstein matter might find his unconvincing defenses and farcical counterattacks (not to mention yet another point of proof that he and Epstein were kinda close) disconcerting. But I wouldn’t be shocked if the opposite turns out to be true—that they’re relieved in a way.

Trump’s actions so far this week—railing against his own loyal fans for caring about the same story they’ve cared about forever, insanely calling that story a “hoax” supposedly carried out long ago by Democrats—were in conflict with the broader MAGA cosmology. But MAGA knows how to respond to stories like this. When Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denounces a “hatchet job article” that is “like the Steele Dossier that kickstarted the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax all over again,’” their heads start nodding along so fast they risk ligament damage in their necks.

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