The most important thing about Donald Trump’s presidency, when viewed alongside the history of every other occupant of the Oval Office, is that to understand what drives him day-to-day, you have to understand his psychology—all the twisted urges and impulses that twitch in his brain. This is because much of what he does comes from pure instinct—he is not controlled by the superego; an animal drive that is not tempered by conscience. That aside, all he really cares about is how he looks on TV (specifically Fox News and Newsmax). Who can doubt that he loves bombing those ships in the Caribbean, that he loves seeing them grow big on the big screen?
So in analyzing this administration, we have to look for psychological “narratives” in a way we haven’t with any other president, because other presidents, whatever their politics, were not emotional 5-year-olds who lived in an impenetrable image bubble created and maintained by their staff and their propagandists with press releases. And the psychological story of the week? Bringing Rep. Lauren Boebert into the White House Situation Room to try to break her down and get her to change her vote on Jeffrey Epstein’s discharge petition.
Think of it purely as a the president’s decision. We don’t know if it was his idea or if an assistant came up with this plan and liked it, but it’s the same thing. Yes, we can imagine Trump thinking: Situation Room; secret, private, all those fancy screens and maps, it’s going to scare her.
When LBJ gathered a recalcitrant member of Congress, he invited him to Truman’s balcony for a drink of bourbon. Trump locked Boebert in a room that is supposed to be used to monitor military operations. Here, Barack Obama watched as SEAL Team Six defeated bin Laden. It’s unclear if Trump was there. One thinks he was. But wannabe hackers Pam Bondi and Kash Patel showed up. wait what? What did their presence mean? Why did the Attorney General and FBI Director have to be involved in the legislative process? Was there any thought of hinting to Boebert that she might face some legal consequences if she didn’t surrender? For a congressional vote?
Boebert laughed out loud, but she didn’t budge. In fact, the strong-arming made her even more convinced that Trump might be hiding something. It’s hard to imagine ever saying this, but: good for her. And to her colleague, Nancy Mace, whom Trump simply called, old fashioned. But both stood their ground, and next week the House will vote to compel Bondi’s Justice Department to release the files, with up to 100 Republicans possibly voting for it.
Trump is clearly panicking about this. This week we saw why. Many of Epstein’s emails released this week the letters—at least in the court of public opinion—were incriminating in one way or another; no more than the one that Epstein in 2018 wrote to an unnamed acquaintance in December, in which he announced, “I can take him down.” Also: “I know how dirty Donald is.” (Apparently he was too lazy to press Shift.)
Trump, as always, says it’s all lies and he’s done nothing wrong. You can also read several published e-mails. letters supporting this statement. But just stop and think: here we are sitting in the year 2025. in November, in the middle (or early-mid) of a credible investigation into whether the US president had sex with underage girls. (And when media allies like Megyn Kelly publicly try to clarify the differences between sex with a 5-year-old and sex with a 15-year-old, that’s not a good sign.)
There are still many reasons to believe that we will never get a satisfactory answer about Trump’s place in Epstein’s grotesque constellation of decadent elites. Trump still has a number of hurdles to clear to get to the point of making the files public. First of all, it is the Senate. Because when the House of Representatives votes to release the documents, the Senate must do so. I have yet to see many obstacles in this regard. But it would have to clear the 60-vote barrier, meaning 13 Republicans would have to vote with Democrats to pass the issue.
Then, of course, even if it passes the Senate, Trump can veto it. At that time, two-thirds of each House member would be needed to override the veto. And even then, if all this happens, it will still be Bondi. She could just say No, I won’t. Yes, that would be a defiance of an act of Congress. Is it really hard for you to imagine how she does it?
Of course, if it gets to that point, we’ll have a major national scandal on our hands for one simple reason that will be abundantly clear to most of the American people: If Trump and his cronies are going to such lengths to keep these files from being released, then he must have something bad to hide.
This is what makes this contest different from all other Trump will contests. Fighting the Democrats, the woke universities, the liberal law firms, the people he hates to be in America, he always took a position that a certain percentage of Americans found attractive, for whatever reason. That’s why they enjoy his bullying and don’t care about his lies.
But this is different. He doesn’t stand for anything remotely principled, and he doesn’t slay any America-hating dragons. He is simply hiding his possible heinous crimes. Given how we’ve already seen this issue divide MAGA land, even some of Trump’s die-hard base will surely see a difference.