Beyond GOP lawmakers having to head home for their summer break and explain their vote on the hugely unpopular budget bill they just shoved through, Donald Trump's Jeffrey Epstein scandal has added to their woes.
According to a report from Politico, Democrats fully intend on making Republicans co-conspirators in the White House's difficulties in making the Epstein files controversy go away.
With House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sending lawmakers home early to avoid a bi-partisan bid to force the Department of Justice to release the files, Democrats plan to turn their GOP House colleagues into collateral damage from the Epstein furor.
According to a senior Democratic aide who spoke with Politico's Rachel Bade, "Everyone’s always talking about Trump being ‘Teflon’ — obviously that’s because all Hill Republicans are pretty much a suit of armor for him, right? But in this instance, they’re not. And so it exposes him, I think, to more attacks that otherwise would be brushed off — and makes it easier for us to drag his numbers down while creating chaos among the Republicans.”
The report adds Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) has become a major thorn in the side of his GOP colleagues as he refuses to relent in getting the files released, and now Republicans are "squirming," with Bade writing, "Beyond having to cancel votes, they are engulfed in finger-pointing about who’s to blame for the embarrassment."
"There’s also a belief among senior Democrats that this controversy feeds into a narrative that is in fact critical to 2026 messaging: that the president is more interested in protecting the rich and powerful than average Joes and children," Bade observed. "That, they surmise, dovetails nicely with their accusations that Republicans are robbing from the poor on Medicaid and food stamps to pay for tax breaks for the rich."
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