‘Imaginations go wild’: MAGA Epstein fury fuels antisemitic rants

The MAGA base may be tearing itself apart over the Trump administration’s attempt to close the book on the Jeffrey Epstein case, but some of the president’s conspiracy-minded supporters are still pouring gasoline on an ugly antisemitic trope long associated with the deceased financier and sex offender.

Following Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail in 2019, Trump and his allies fed supporters’ beliefs that the case would unlock secrets about a cabal of global elites who would finally be brought to justice. The power of the saga over the collective imagination is that there are unanswered questions about how Epstein made his money and who else might be implicated in his crimes.

“It’s provided a launchpad for people’s imaginations to go wild,” Jared Holt, an extremism researcher and co-host of the Posting Through It podcast, told Raw Story.

“I think a lot of the antisemitic stuff is based on pure speculation. Someone came up with this idea, and people have taken it to the extreme.”

The undercurrent of antisemitism in the case rests on the unfounded assertion that Epstein was connected to Israeli intelligence and running a blackmail operation against world leaders.

Those who make the claim cite the facts that Epstein met with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak dozens of times, and Robert Maxwell, the late media baron father of jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, forged close ties with Israeli leaders.

“I think for a lot of people who are mad at Trump for abandoning the Epstein case, it plays into a larger conspiracy theory about Jews running the world,” Will Sommer, a reporter at The Bulwark, told Raw Story.

The evidence that Epstein was involved with intelligence in Israel or anywhere else is circumstantial at best.

Naftali Bennett, another former Israeli prime minister, refuted the claim on X on Monday, writing: “The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false.”

Of course, for those who are inclined to believe antisemitic conspiracy theories, the word of a former Israeli prime minister is unlikely to move the needle.

Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader whose seditious conspiracy sentence for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was commuted by President Donald Trump, mocked Bennett, posting: “Hey everybody! This guy says they didn’t have anything to do with it. Guess we can just stop talking about it now and relax. It wasn’t the joos [sic] this time ok!!”

Holt told Raw Story the “subsection of the Trump base” that is hostile towards Israel “is a lot larger than people give credit for.”

The Epstein controversy dominated last weekend’s Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, where speakers included administration officials and Trump allies.

Tucker Carlson, the influential former Fox News host who helped mainstream the white supremacist Great Replacement theory and campaigned for Trump last year, was among those who took direct aim at Israel.

“It’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct access to a foreign government,” Carlson said.

“Now, no one’s allowed to say that that foreign government’s Israel, because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty,” he added, to cheers from the MAGA crowd.

On social media, Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and who dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, hailed the response to Carlson’s message as “directionally positive,” while asserting that Carlson was not a full ally.

“They are feeding something that they don’t yet understand,” Fuentes wrote on Telegram, a social media platform that serves as a haven for Nazis and other extremists.

“And it’s short sighted, which is why many are urging people like Tucker to pump the brakes. It’s like when those crime bosses hired the Joker to kill Batman.

“So, we can strategically accept that Tucker’s advocacy is good for us, but he isn’t us,” Fuentes added. “We have to take and take and keep coming back for more. Always audacity.”

'Palpable hostility'

The uproar among Trump’s supporters over Epstein comes at a particularly fragile time for American Jews, following the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy workers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. in May, and the lethal firebombing attack on peaceful Jewish marchers calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Colorado in June.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has deployed an “antisemitism task force” against universities while moving to deport foreign students for speaking out against Israel and in support of Palestinian autonomy.

“There’s a palpable hostility towards Israel as the war against Hamas has dragged on and as civilian casualties continue to mount,” Holt said.

“It is the perfect window for influencers who hold not just criticism against Israel but genuinely antisemitic views such as questioning the loyalty of dual citizens and equating the state of Israel with the Jewish people — it’s an opportunity for them to drop in and wedge their own views into the discussion.”

On July 11, Stew Peters, an openly antisemitic podcaster, made an argument that echoed a white power talking point dating back to the 1980s: asserting that the U.S. government is controlled by an external Jewish foe.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, if you’re being bare-naked honest, you know why this is being covered up, and it’s because the pedophiles that are on the Epstein client list and the Epstein tapes and on the Epstein flight logs are active members of this fake occupied government, including active members of this White House,” Peters said.

White supremacists often talk of the “Zionist Occupied Government,” or “ZOG,” a body through which Jewish elites supposedly control U.S. life and use puppets to destroy the white race.

Peters also called members of the Trump administration “liars” while deploying an anti-Hindu slur against FBI Director Kash Patel, who appeared as on Peters’ podcast eight times to assail former President Joe Biden but has now found himself on difficult ground, seeking to quash Epstein conspiracy theories he previously eagerly promoted.

Holt said it was reasonable to ask questions about Epstein’s finances and associations. But he said that anyone who went to court and promised to prove that Epstein was linked to Israeli intelligence would likely find themselves sanctioned.

“Sure, there’s enough there to wonder, but that’s all we can do,” Holt said.

“These people making these bold assertions and digging their heels in, I think they’re in a different category because they’ve assumed the evidence and are using it to agitate in a completely different direction.”