On July 8, something happened to Donald Trump that I’ve not seen happen in the entire decade he has dominated presidential politics. As his base clamored for more disclosures about sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, his superpower — his ability to grab and redirect attention — briefly failed him. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he whined when a journalist asked about the Justice Department’s decision to abort any further disclosure of documents related to the case. “This guy’s been talked about for years.”
I’ve spent years tracking Trump’s favorite attention-management tactics, including in a 14-part podcast. And for several weeks in July, he cycled through all of them, attempting to focus attention somewhere other than Epstein. He tried polarization, claiming that the Epstein scandal, which his own aides and oldest son had stoked just months earlier, was instead just a Democratic hoax. He tried threats, attacking those who clamored for more. “I’ve lost a lot of faith in certain people,” he complained, “Some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net, and so they try and do the Democrats’ work.” Even after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Epstein’s associate, the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, conducting a scripted proffer designed to minimize her crimes, Trump was left offering up a list of things he wanted people to cover instead of his own ties to Epstein. The most successful ploy was the same one he has used since 2018, chanting Russia Russia Russia. On July 18, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard renewed old complaints about the Russia investigation, screaming treason and blaming Barack Obama.
It took 10 days, threats against right-wing influencers still focused on Epstein, and Gabbard’s conspiracy theory before Trump started to reclaim his ability to redirect the media’s attention.