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Donald Trump's decision to fall back on attacking former President Barack Obama, who left office in 2017, is a sign that he has found himself without any defenses as the Jeffrey Epstein files controversy swamps his administration after only six months, a former Republican leader said.

In a column on Thursday, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, now a host on MSNBC's "The Weeknight," claimed Trump is attacking America's first Black president to take the focus off the fact that events have taken an unexpectedly bad turn for his second term.

Noting the president posted an AI-generated video of Obama being shackled and taken away for treason, based upon a previous real Oval Office meeting, on his Truth Social account, Steele first wrote, "Trump has once again shown his lack of class and decorum by his depraved use of footage of that meeting to make an autocratic threat to distract the country from questions about his past associations with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein."

He suggested Trump's re-upping of his old grievances is a sign that "the walls are closing in."

"Trump’s political career was born out of Obama hatred," he wrote. "It was birtherism that gave him his base, the lie that Obama was foreign, un-American and undeserving of the presidency. Now, with the Epstein scandal escalating, Trump is reaching for the same playbook: distort, distract and racialize," Steele accused before observing, "In a sense, the Trump era has just been one long backlash to Obama."

He added that there is a "serious undertone" to the new war on Obama.

"He’s pulling from the authoritarian playbook by normalizing — and even celebrating — the concept of a president imprisoning his predecessor; especially if that predecessor is Barack Obama. Retribution is vindication; and vindication is at the heart of Trump’s dangerous Obama obsession." he suggested.

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The splintering of the Republican Party — particularly in the House — over Donald Trump's Jeffrey Epstein problems has gifted Democrats a rare opportunity to call the shots in recent weeks.

According to longtime GOP adviser Brendan Buck, who appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Thursday, the number of Republicans who have jumped ship on Trump over releasing the Epstein files has handed Democrats leverage to put House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in a corner.

Speaking with co-host Jonathan Lemire, Buck claimed recent events have changed the power dynamic in Congress.

"You're certainly familiar with the House of Representatives," Lemire prompted his guest. "Speaker Johnson, as we discussed last hour, sending the House home a little early to try to kick the can down the road. But it's sort of an example as to ho, at least part of the Republican party, is not going to let this go. We see some members of the GOP defy Johnson, defy Trump for voting for this measure. Give us your sense of the state of play."

"Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen committees and certainly the floor be tied up in knots on a single issue like this," Buck conceded. "You have multiple committees that don't know what to do at this point, because any amendment being offered by Democrats on this, they may lose votes."

"I think it's important that that one subpoena on DOJ was offered by a Democrat," he pointed out. "Look, Joe [Scarborough] knows this: when you're in the minority, you don't have a lot of opportunities to kind of shape the debate. And what's going on, the House is a majoritarian institution, but Democrats have absolutely struck gold, you know?"

"Set aside the obviously very serious underlying issues here, they understand that Republicans are eating themselves alive and they're helping them do it," he elaborated. "The reality is, every single one of these members on the Republican side, they absolutely need something they can latch onto. And that's why you have multiple committees all trying to get a piece of this."
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Donald Trump is learning the hard way how fostering conspiracies can come back to bite you — and now his political future is uncertain.

That is the opinion of conservative polling guru Karl Rove, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the Jeffrey Epstein files imbroglio that is swamping his administration will likely have no happy ending in store for the president.

Written before the Journal dropped the bombshell that the president was told in May his name appears in the files on the accused pedophile, Rove wrote that the Trump rode to victory in 2024 in large part by promising to expose the clients of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

Now Trump is scrambling as a substantial number within the MAGA mob aren't taking it well and, in their anger and disappointment, may decide to give up on politics altogether.

Writing, "Team Trump is now in damage control mode. They’ve also fought among themselves. That will leave scars," Rove suggested, "One possibility is the Trump administration unleashes not facts, but fresh unsupported claims to 'prove' what they’ve said is true. Another possibility is that Team Trump makes no definitive statements. Neither would be enough and the outcome might cause conspiracy backers to view Mr. Trump and his administration as tools of the Deep State, in on it from the beginning."

Pointing out that an adherence to reality is not one of Trump's strong points, he noted, "What should trouble him is that recent events may well reduce the number of his supporters who vote in the midterms and beyond."

"Told their passionately held beliefs are wrong or forced to watch the White House fail to jail their common enemies, many might become discouraged, tune out and drop out of politics," he added before predicting, "That could lead to a Democratic win in the 2026 midterms and beyond. If that happens, Mr. Trump’s life will get a whole lot more complicated."

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