Ex-Fox News host warns Trump's words will 'haunt' Republicans
Former Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera told CNN's Kate Bolduan on Friday he doesn't think President Donald Trump's push to bury the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking files controversy, most recently calling it a "hoax" manufactured by Democrats, is going to move the needle much.
"It's a valid question to be asked as to why the Democrats didn't push more for any of this during President Biden's term or after, after Epstein's death," said Bolduan. "That being said, the president continues to try to tamp this down. Do you think that this sort of thing, calling it a hoax by the Democrats, is enough to tamp down the calls for transparency from within his own party on this issue?"
"Well, there is no doubt that Trump is done with Epstein; the question is whether Epstein is done with Trump," said Rivera. The issue for Trump, he continued, is "there is an intransigence among certain members of Congress, particularly Republican women, where they say, 'Hey, listen, we need to have justice for these victims, we need to find out all that happened.'"
"President Trump is right when he says — I love the quote, 'Democrats did nothing while he was alive except befriend him' — that is, Epstein — 'socialized with him, traveled to his island and take his money,'" said Rivera. "So I think they have, you know, the Democrats are relishing this moment. It's setting the president off his agenda. You know, it's — it's hard to get rid of. It's kind of a sticky thing you can't get off your fingers
"It's ... one of those impasses where I think the conspiracy theory industry will keep this alive," Rivera continued, likening it to the theories around the Kennedy assassination. "It's one of those things that will be enduring. It will stay forever. It will, the conspiracy theorists will bring it up a century from now, it seems to me. Epstein's island, who took his money, what did they do, who were the victims, what did, you know, people in power do to these poor young girls? You know, it's one of those things where as long as there is a driver in the House of Representatives, like Nancy Mace, for instance, of South Carolina, you're going to have this issue around."
"I think it's going to haunt Republicans," he added. "It's something that the president will be increasingly frustrated by, not that he can get much more frustrated than he is already. But it's, it's an issue that, you know — he calls it a hoax, the women in Congress say, 'Hey, yeah, let's — let's see who's involved, if anyone.'"
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