Trump’s alienating MAGA base with 'second term senioritis': analyst

President Donald Trump appears to be losing support from his MAGA base, and one analyst thinks the Jeffrey Epstein case exposed the real reason why.

Dan Pfeiffer, the former senior advisor on communications and strategy to Barack Obama, said on a recent episode of "Pod Save America" that it appears Trump no longer understands his base. During his first term, the president appeared to be intimately familiar with the kinds of stories that MAGA responds to, whether they were conspiracy theories or pure fiction.

Now, it seems like Trump is out of touch with what his base really cares about. The Epstein files are case and point, according to Pfeiffer.

"There is an element of Second Term Senioritis here where presidents win re-election, they get full of themselves, they overreach, they lose touch with the reason why they won, and that's manifested itself in two ways here," Pfeiffer said.

"One...the entire premise of Trump, for his supporters, is that he's this wrecking ball outsider who is going to go in and take on this corrupt political system that is for the insiders," Pfeiffer continued. "A datapoint for that worldview is that Jeffrey Epstein had all these powerful friends and nobody has ever paid any sort of price for that."

Trump has tried to distance himself from the Epstein files for nearly a week with no luck. He's reportedly called MAGA influencers personally to ask them to stop talking about the story. He's also demanded that his supporters stop talking about it, and claimed those who continue to do so are "weaklings."

"Now, Trump is the insider by protecting these powerful people," Pfeiffer added.

Not only has the MAGA base been calling for the Epstein files to be released, but some members of the GOP have also started calling for the administration to release them. For instance, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has called on the administration to be transparent with the base.

Other GOP lawmakers like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have also called for the files to be released, despite the president's opposition.

"[Trump] doesn't get why his base cares about this," Pfeiffer said. "That's been his one political superpower."

Listen to the entire episode here.