TRUMP IS A RAPIST

President Trump allegedly sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl who was trafficked to him by Jeffrey Epstein, according to documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) last Thursday. The White House insists the allegations are “completely baseless“ and “backed by zero credible evidence.”

For three decades, the victim only told her mother and one close friend about the alleged assault by Trump. The DOJ became aware of the allegation when that friend called a tipline that had been set up for Epstein victims. By that time, her mother was deceased.

In 2019, the victim told the FBI that her mother advertised her babysitting services in Hilton Head, South Carolina, in the 1980s. She was 13 years old. Epstein, known to her as “Jeff,” responded.

She said that when she arrived at Epstein’s condo, he was alone, and offered her drugs and alcohol. As the room went blurry, the victim alleged, Epstein began to sexually assault her. She said the rapes and abuse continued for several years — both in South Carolina and in other states.

When she was between 13 and 15 years old, the victim said she was transported by Epstein “to either New York or New Jersey” and taken to a “very tall building with huge rooms.” At that point, according to her account, she was introduced to Trump.

The victim told the FBI that Trump cleared the room and said something like, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.” Trump then unzipped his pants and forced her head onto his penis, the victim alleged. In her FBI interview, the victim said that she “bit the shit out of it” in response, and Trump retaliated by hitting her on the side of the head.

Since the initial release of the documents, two important developments have bolstered the credibility of the alleged victim. This new information has received little national media attention.

First, the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown, the nation’s premier journalist on the Epstein scandal, has revealed new information about how the FBI assessed the victim. Brown, citing a DOJ source, reported that the FBI agents who interviewed the victim “found her to be credible.” The DOJ source told Brown that they would not have interviewed her four times if they suspected she was lying. This does not mean they were able to verify the substance of the victim’s allegations, but it is significant.

Second, the Post and Courier, a media outlet based in Charleston, South Carolina, verified key aspects of the victim’s story around the time of the alleged Trump assault. For example, the victim claimed “her mother became aware that Epstein had nude photos of the teen from their sexual encounters and was demanding money to keep them hidden.” She told the FBI that this “extortion demand caused her mother to steal funds from her real estate company.” The Post and Courier obtained public records showing that her mother was “accused of stealing $22,000 from the escrow account” at the time. The victim also said that these financial crimes ultimately landed her mother in “a state prison near Columbia.” Public records obtained by the Post and Courier confirm her mother’s incarceration.

Smaller details also checked out. For example, the victim told the DOJ that she once bumped into Epstein at a Rick James concert in Savannah. Archival newspaper databases show that James regularly played in the Savannah area at the time.

These new developments do not prove that the substance of the victim’s allegations is true. But, put into context with what we already knew about Trump and how the Epstein files have been handled, it suggests her claims should be taken seriously.

Three key documents about Trump’s alleged sexual assault of a minor were withheld

On January 30, the DOJ announced that it had completed the release of all Epstein documents it was required to disclose under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That document dump, however, only included a brief description of the allegations against Trump and a summary of one interview where the victim did not discuss the alleged sexual assault by Trump.

Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger discovered the existence of three additional interview summaries with the victim in the files of a case involving Ghislaine Maxwell. Sollenberger’s reporting was later confirmed by numerous major media outlets. Only after a public outcry about the missing files were summaries of these interviews released.

On March 5, the Justice Department released the three additional interview summaries, claiming that they were incorrectly labeled as “duplicative.” The notion that three documents that contain detailed allegations about Trump sexually assaulting a minor were accidentally miscoded strains credulity, particularly since an interview with the same victim that does not mention Trump was previously released.

Other key documents about Trump’s alleged sexual assault of a minor continue to be withheld

NPR reported that 53 pages of materials related to Trump’s alleged sexual assault of a minor were excluded from the DOJ’s January 30 release. So far, only 16 pages have been disclosed, meaning 37 pages are still being withheld by the Trump administration. The missing documents include “notes from the interviews, a law enforcement report and license records.” The DOJ has not explained why these materials are not being released.

Trump has been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women

More than two dozen women have accused Trump of sexual assault. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-90s and later defaming her. He was accused by multiple contestants of walking into a group dressing room “while teenagers were changing their clothes“ during the Miss Teen USA pageants in the 1990s. In 2005, he bragged about his ability to go into beauty pageant dressing rooms during an episode of Howard Stern.

Famously, Trump was recorded bragging about his ability to get away with sexual assault in 2005 on an Access Hollywood tape.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Retail Is Boring. Resale Is Booming. Inside the Consumer Shift Reshaping Apparel

Companies hate markdowns and shoppers hate full price. Resale startups are solving both problems.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

Mar 10, 2026

 

It’s no secret that during the last 15 years, growth in retail apparel sales has cratered while the resale market for secondhand clothes—both brick-and-mortar and online—has exploded. Resale growth is scaling at five or six times retail’s growth rate and should double by 2028. Most estimates expect that global sales of “previously owned” clothing will grow by more than 10 percent annually, while traditional retail results will be flat or even down. The truth is that virtually no one these days has any interest in paying full price for anything, and especially for costly items that they’re likely to wear a couple of times and then forget about.  

The rise of the “fast fashion” industry and its messaging didn’t do any favors to the old-line brands and manufacturers when they taught several generations of upcoming kids, mini fashionistas, and social media influencers that all these products were quickly and cheaply made, likely to last for a single season, and imminently disposable. They’re hot for a moment and then they’re not. Prices are up while quality is down in flimsy fast fashion items. 

No one under 35 (40 percent of all used apparel shoppers) thinks of clothing as classic anymore. Multi-generational hand-me-downs and well-made garments that can last for years to come seems to be a thing of the past. Looking like a slob can be a strong social statement that you’re socially responsible and don’t really care about material things.  

An under-appreciated aspect of the whole resale revolution is how social the entire shopping experience has become with direct links, rewards and incentives being pushed by TikTok and Instagram. Retail is boring and mass; resale is an adventure in personal branding and an opportunity to discover unique items and stand out from the herd. 

The broader explanations offered for this shift in demand, desire and taste are several and typically fall into four areas: affordability/budget consciousness, sustainability/eco-friendly action, thrifting as an adventure/social signaling, and uniqueness/non-mass market. One of the modest ironies with respect to this desire for non-mass market goods is, of course, that most of the apparel now available for resale was in fact mass produced back in the day when it was new. But now it’s chic and charming. Smart young shoppers are also aspirational and appreciate the opportunity to acquire upscale brand apparel at a discount. Another curious consideration is that if the goods weren’t well made initially, they probably wouldn’t have lasted and been available for the secondary market. 

In any event the main driver of the exponential resale expansion has been internet connectivity, technology advances in management of large scale data and images along with the emergence and popularity of online resale sites like Depop, Poshmark, and ThredUp. At the higher and more expensive end, The RealReal sets the price and luxury curve. The RealReal management has also experimented with brick-and-mortar stores, but with only limited success.  

Much like the car business, no one calls these clothes “used” however. The big brand chains have slowly started to respond to the resale trend by offering their own versions – they’ve all come up with clever names like Worn Wear (Patagonia), Athleta Preloved, Hanna-Me-Downs, Rejuiced, and Madewell Forever. In many cases, this response is accelerating because, aside from the obvious pressure from the resellers, the big brands hate the embarrassment of mark-downs, don’t like to see their goods sold in discount and outlet chains, and like to avoid all of the problems disposing of excess inventory. As a result, a fair amount of the goods moving through these channels may, in fact, be virtually brand new, in colors and styles that simply didn’t sell, or returned goods. Resale companies like Archive are pitching brands every day to help them increase their profits by more efficiently and quickly disposing of unwanted inventory.  

As exciting as the rapid growth has been, there’s an enormous remaining volume of resalable goods (including adjacent markets such as shoes, toys, outdoor and sports gear and baby products) which all share similar ownership and behavioral characteristics. No one outgrows and ages out of expensive infant products faster than sprouting little kids. And no one abandons running shoes, pickleball racquets and other exercise gear more quickly than Millennials.

But it’s not as easy as it may seem to enter these spaces and to cost-effectively attract, aggregate and market millions of these items, especially when the vast majority of the amateur “sellers” are “one of one” cases. It sounds like a great idea to sell your stuff until you actually set out to sort, take pictures of, write descriptions for, and then “list” those everyday items, which might ultimately not be worth the time and effort. But it’s a great green space for enterprising entrepreneurs. 

Two-way consumer-targeted markets are ridiculously expensive to build and grow unless you can figure out a way to work with the existing players and “ride their rails” so your business can avoid the vast majority of costs on both sides of the process. Let existing vendors expand, aggregate, and organize all the inventory on one side and find partners and affiliates who are already attracting millions of shoppers on the other side and figure out a win-win way to work with both groups.  

That’s what is so interesting about Beni, which permits retail online shoppers to quickly and painlessly search for second-hand items, matching their searches through over 300 million apparel and accessory offers from more than 40 different resale sites in a one-stop online location and/or through its own app. Visitors can search by image, text or URL. Beni’s browser extension overlays other vendors stores and “tags along” essentially as an intelligent assistant that accompanies and interrupts a typical retail search with suggestions of comparable (and less expensive) secondhand goods available at any of its affiliates’ sites. It’s already so effective that in some cases the company is working directly with brand sites like Patagonia to offer their own secondhand items so that the brands don’t have to build out and maintain their own systems. While we’re clearly well past the “peak apps” point in our lives and our phones, the truth is that a simple Chrome browser extension is a pretty simple and painless ask for all the search power and access that Beni provides.  

And, of course, the Beni enabling technology strategy avoids virtually all of the marketing and acquisition costs on both sides of the resale search marketplace. Their offerings are expanding and improving at a rapid pace with photo management tools (Beni Lens), real-time alerts, and wish lists all in one place. They have a good shot at becoming the secondhand search engine for the entire resale marketplace. 

 

Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult as Polls Take Brutal Turn

 Transcript: Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult as Polls Take Brutal Turn

As this presidency enters the danger zone on multiple fronts, a writer who chronicles Trumpworld explains how cultlike praise of Trump functions for MAGA at moments of political crisis.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the March 9 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

In this episode, we discuss this polling average showing support for the Iran war at 38 percent, this finding showing Trump’s net approval on immigration has lost 20 points since last year, and these terrible numbers for Trump on the economy.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

We’ve noticed an interesting pattern. Whenever the news gets particularly bad for Donald Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s cult-like obsequiousness gets dialed up to 11. That just happened after Trump was hit with a brutal news cycle on multiple fronts. Those fronts include increasing signs that the U.S. might have bombed an Iranian elementary school, terrible new jobs numbers, and the firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Trump’s presidency is in trouble, and it’s at moments like this that his sycophants really step it up. We’re trying to make sense of all this with Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who dissects Trumpworld as well as anyone out there. Amanda, always good to have you on.

Marcotte: Thanks for having me.

Sargent: So first, we apologize for doing two episodes in a row involving Karoline Leavitt, but we think this is really important. Here’s Leavitt’s latest. Donald Trump exploded on Truth Social insisting that the war will not stop until Iran commits to “unconditional surrender.” That sure sounds like regime change is the goal, so Leavitt tried to clean this up. Listen to this exchange.

Reporter (voiceover): What does the president mean when he calls for unconditional surrender? Is he saying that the regime has to fully relinquish control?

Leavitt (voiceover): What the president means is that when he, as commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury have been fully realized—then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not.

Sargent: I mean, that’s just insane. The Iranian regime must fully surrender; how will we know when that has happened? Not when it actually happens—just when Dear Leader says it has happened. This is bizarrely cult-like. What do you think, Amanda?

Marcotte: I had the worst flashback to George W. Bush in his flight suit with his “Mission Accomplished” banner in the Iraq War. He made the same mistake. He put a little bit more effort into the mistake—he maybe didn’t fly completely by the seat of his pants—but he still made the same mistake, which is: If I say the war is over, if I say it’s done, if I say we have succeeded, then that will somehow make it so. And it just turns out that’s not actually true. How many years did the war drag past the “Mission Accomplished” banner? This is not how it works. You can’t just say they have unconditionally surrendered when they’re still shooting at you and throwing bombs and fighting back.

Sargent: And who knows what could happen in the aftermath of this. Of course, the United States could essentially decimate the Iranian regime and then Trump could declare a victory at that point and go home—any one of these scenarios is possible. But what’s kind of alarming is this setting of the table for Trump gets to say what reality is. That’s why I find this so disheartening and so dispiriting to watch.

You have Trump himself popping off and just tweeting out: Here’s the new war goal, the new war goal is unconditional surrender. And instead of hearing from people in the administration who know what they’re talking about, all we get is his chief propagandist telling us that that’s absolutely a brilliant way to describe what’s happening—and that he’ll get to say when it has happened. Do you know what I mean?

Marcotte: Maybe I’m just a Pollyanna, or an eternal optimist, but I can’t help but see the escalating—everything is great, nothing is wrong, Dear Leader knows everything, if Dear Leader says this one day and says [the opposite] the next day, or honestly, with Trump and the Iran war, it changes by the hour, what he claims the objectives are—they’re basically trying to assert not just that Dear Leader knows everything, but that there’s sense to be made out of this pudding-brain nonsense that’s coming out of him. The louder and the more insistent and the harder the clapping gets, the more I just feel like that’s all they have. There’s a stench of desperation coming from Karoline Leavitt.

Sargent: Let’s check out a little bit more of Karoline Leavitt here. She was asked about MAGA’s anger over the attack on Iran. MAGA, of course, is supposed to be anti-interventionist, against foreign entanglements, et cetera. Leavitt said the following:

Leavitt (voiceover): President Trump is the leader of MAGA. He’s the creator of the MAGA movement. And there is nothing more America First than taking out terrorists who have maimed and killed our own servicemen and women, who chant “death to America,” and who pose a threat to the homeland. President Trump is the leader of the “Peace Through Strength” foreign policy doctrine. He attempted peace through diplomacy, exhaustively and extensively, with the rogue Iranian regime. They have been struck with the strength and the sheer might and will of the United States Armed Forces, and President Trump has proven he’s a man of his word.

Sargent: That too is just so crazy. MAGA is whatever Trump says it is. Any legitimate aspirations or fears that Trump voters or MAGA influencers have about excessive foreign military adventurism can just be wiped out by a mighty fatwa from the movement leader. And then of course there’s the bizarrely obsequious way she keeps circling back to praise of Trump himself. What did you make of this one?

Marcotte: It’s really interesting. Once again, I smell desperation. And a lot of the dynamics—the palace intrigue, but also what’s going on in right-wing media—can point to what the larger problem they’re facing is, which is that it’s increasingly clear to everyone in the MAGA movement that Donald Trump is not going to be there for another term. It’s not only illegal—he’s turning 80 this year, he’s in poor health, he has this vile rash on his neck, he has total pudding brain. His hands—we all know he’s not looking good. He sounds terrible. And he’s probably just not going to be able to run again, even if it was legal.

Everyone is trying to figure out what MAGA looks like after Donald Trump. But from Donald Trump’s perspective—or from the perspective of Karoline Leavitt, who needs to make him feel good to keep her job—we have to keep up this illusion that he’s going to live forever and that this debate about what happens next is not even happening, because Dear Leader will live forever. I think that’s what’s going on. You don’t live forever. Biology catches up with you. He’s not going to be able to tamp down these tensions within the party for that long.

Sargent: I hadn’t even thought about it this way, but the constant drumbeat of “Trump is invincible, Trump is strong, Trump is powerful, Trump is the great leader of MAGA” and so forth—it is also about the very visible signs of Trump’s physical decline, his mental decline, and his mortality, isn’t it. That is the thing that’s hovering over all this. He’s not going to be there forever. He’s on his way out. This is a last hurrah. He’s getting to blow up a bunch of things—cool, great, he’s very powerful and strong. But that’s what’s lurking behind all this obsequiousness.

Marcotte: To a large degree. It’s really profound in this particular issue because you have JD Vance, who I really do think did not want this Iran war. He was shut out of the decision-making about whether it was going to happen. He’s trying to make himself seem powerful by saying he has some say in how it happened. But he’s also trying to make clear—through background conversations with reporters—that he didn’t want this, because he believes—and I think there’s good reason to believe this—that the future of MAGA runs through this America First isolationist concept. They were actually able to cobble together a coalition with some swing voters by saying no more wars. This is bad for that. This is very bad for JD Vance.

So he has a real incentive to distance himself from Trump. But he also has a fear that if he does that too much, Trump is going to cut him loose. So he’s in a weird position. I have to assume that Trump is aware of these tensions, that he’s aware that a lot of people are circling and think they’re going to be next—and he does not like it.

Sargent: Well, all this comes after some pretty bad news for Trump. An elementary school was bombed in southern Iran—175 people were killed, mostly children. The New York Times did this devastating video analysis showing that the U.S. was conducting strikes right in that area at the same time as the bombing of the school. And Reuters reports that U.S. military investigators think it’s likely that the bombing was done by U.S. forces. None of this is definitive, but it raises the possibility that the U.S. just carried out the worst atrocity toward civilians in decades. Now, there’s nothing apologetic coming from Trumpworld at all. Do you hear anything like that?

Marcotte: No, and I have a small amount of optimism that this is going to break through to voters. There is sometimes a tendency to tune out the carnage that the U.S. government has inflicted on other people. Not always—I mean, [in] the Iraq War, a lot of the time the war crimes, Gitmo, the terrible things that happened broke through and people got angry about it. But in this case, it’s little girls. And that’s always tough to swallow.

It’s also because this is happening at the same time that they were waging war at home on their own residents and citizens, many of whom are also children. The assault on Minneapolis was understood as an assault on children. We have that little kid with his little bunny ears being hauled off to a detention center. We have that woman holding up a baby for the cameras in El Paso. And we’re beginning to see that the racist and fascistic policies of the Trump administration harm children. And that is getting through to people. There’s serious evidence I’ve seen that especially some Republican-voting women are starting to feel awfully queasy about inflicting so much death and destruction on children.

Sargent: That’s really interesting. There is definitely a through line there. And the other through line, of course, is unshackled state violence. I want to float an actual polling number as well. G. Elliott Morris, the data analyst, averaged together a bunch of polls on Iran—he took the high-quality ones—and found that an average of only 38 percent approve of the Iran war or Trump’s handling of it. Those are bad numbers. You take that along with this news about the school, and this is going badly for them politically. 

If you step back and keep that in your head and then listen to Karoline Leavitt go full cult the way she does over and over, you can see what’s really going on there. They are full culting in order to drown out the bad news. That’s what I think is going on as well. Both to keep it from Dear Leader’s ears, obviously, but also to drown it out in the public realm. If Trump is just eternally strong and invulnerable and invincible, then there can’t be bad news by definition. 

Marcotte: 38 percent is such a fascinating number, because that’s the number that for a decade now we know is basically the MAGA die-hards—the people that really are in the cult, the people that really will never, ever, ever admit that Trump is wrong about anything. 38 is where he fell after the Virginia riots in 2017. 38 was kind of where he fell during the worst parts of COVID. 38 percent is where [he landed] after January 6th. Those are the people that are in the cult—American fascists who will never change. 

And what he needs is a little bit more than that. But the fact that they’re doing only base management, that they’re strictly trying to remind their base: remember, if you admit that Trump did something wrong, the liberals were right, and we can never allow that—that says to me that they’re afraid they can’t even keep that 38 percent. 

And on this, they may not be wrong. Because one of the things that allowed Trump to win in the first place was that he really held himself out as absolution for all the people that voted for George W. Bush and had residual resentment, guilt, and shame over what happened there. Trump was a different kind of Republican, so they could trust that he was never going to shame them like Bush did with the Iraq War. And that’s what he’s doing now—doing exactly the same thing, except more ham-fistedly and stupidly. 

Sargent: Well, the base management element is really interesting. If I understand you correctly, you’re basically saying that when Karoline Leavitt goes out there and says MAGA is what Trump says it is, she’s saying to the base: don’t let the liberals be right. 

Marcotte: At the end of the day, the most important psychology that keeps these people on board is just that: That admitting that Trump is bad or wrong or a failure is admitting that all those people who for a decade have been telling you that you made a mistake were right. And what’s weird is the longer this drags on, the harder it is for them to let go without some kind of off-ramp. And if there ever was an off-ramp, I do think the Iran war might be it—because again, they don’t want another Bush. Trump ran pretty explicitly the first time as: I am not another Bush. He made fun of the Bush that was in the race, and here he is, another Bush. 

Sargent: All other Republicans are losers. That’s the crux, right? 

Marcotte: Yeah. So he lied to them pretty directly. If they want to take that, they can use it as their way out—which is to say, Well, I thought I was voting for no more wars, and I was lied to.

Sargent: And [Leavitt] is trying to say you can’t do that. We also just learned that the economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, which caps a stretch in which job creation was significantly worse on Trump’s watch than on his predecessor’s watch. Trump’s polling on the economy has been absolutely brutal of late. The tariffs are completely underwater and his general economic approval is also completely underwater. So if you take that along with the 38 percent who support the Iran war, you’re looking at a presidency that’s on very shaky ground, aren’t you?

Marcotte: And that’s before the midterms. We need to understand that if Democrats win both the House and the Senate, Trump is in very real danger. For one thing, the thing he’s been trying to avoid for a year now—which is the full release of the Epstein files—is coming down on him. And all sorts of other accountability could be in play. 

Sargent: His economic approval is in terrible shape, he’s losing ground on national security, and his immigration numbers are upside down. Harry Enten of CNN just put out new numbers where he said Trump has lost 20 points on net approval on immigration in the last year or so. You’ve got something that may be unprecedented, in which a Republican president is losing ground and throwing away the traditional Republican advantage on three different things—the economy, immigration, and national security. You’ve got all this bad news coming out. To what degree do you think that’s linked directly to these kinds of displays of obsequious cultishness from Leavitt?

It seems to me like there are several layers to it. One layer is that she just wants to make Trump feel better. Then there’s the other dimension, which is that he is physically in decline and all of MAGA world knows that they are looking at a world beyond Trump after he’s passed. Passed from the scene, maybe passed from this earth as well. You really can see the psychology of MAGA sort of in the raw when they go out there and hail his greatness the way they do at moments like this. What’s your basic thought on all of it? 

Marcotte: I agree that her first and foremost motivation is making her boss feel good so she keeps her job. I would love to look inside her head and see if she actually thinks it makes a difference to say these obsequious, laughable things—if she thinks she’s actually persuading anybody, or if it’s just ... managing her boss’s feelings, because it might just be that. 

They don’t have any other tools—I think is probably a piece of this. The traditional tools that MAGA has used to sort of bamboozle a lot of people in the past are falling apart on them. And I don’t think that they know what to do.  

We’re seeing a lot of people who are behaving like they don’t know what to do. They don’t know what’s going to happen next. They’re at the whims of a mercurial boss who may not be remembering super well what he said one minute to the next. There is no plan here. I think that they’re just winging it in the most ridiculous way. 

It makes me happy because I don’t think that that’s a sustainable plan, but I don’t know that there’s much more to it. I definitely don’t think Karoline Leavitt is going out there and talking to cameras like she’s Baghdad Bob because she thinks that that’s going to turn the tide in any way.

Sargent: I don’t think she thinks she’s going to move the middle, but a lot of this is base management. Can you wrap up your thoughts on that? The base is being bombarded by a lot of mixed signaling. They’re sort of in this propaganda bubble to some degree, but then on the outer edges of the MAGA base, you’re going to see people who get pretty damn upset about the kid getting thrown into detention with the child’s hat, and they’re going to get pretty damn upset about people getting shot in their cars on the street by Stephen Miller’s paramilitary goons, and pretty damn upset about the bombing of a school.

It’s almost like going out and then saying to those people this man is invincible and perfect, is another insult, but they don’t see it that way. You know what I mean? That’s where it breaks down for me. If you’re trying to hold MAGA together, why are you telling the people who are going to be upset by these horrors that this man is of unquestionable greatness? I don’t get it. 

Marcotte: It’s foolish. I watch Fox News sometimes, and other right-wing propagandists who are more effective at this stuff, like Tucker Carlson, or Candace Owens, or the people that the MAGA base actually is putting their trust in more and more every day, that’s not how they play this. 

When Trump is fucking up and ... they can’t defend it, their strategy is to say the left is worse, the left is dangerous, the left is chaotic, the left is demonic, they’re the bad guys. You know, the problem with Renee Good and Alex Pretti getting shot is that these people won’t stay in their houses, that they won’t stop fussing with ICE. The problem is the protesters are violent. The problem is blah, blah, blah. 

Whataboutism is their most effective strategy. And then you look at the White House themselves, and they have abandoned what has traditionally been their most effective strategy of distraction and like deflection, and instead are just saying, “shut up, Trump can’t do anything wrong.” Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe these people are so deep in the cult that there’s not even going to be defectors. 

But traditionally, even in cult psychology, you find that a lot of people, when they’re told to shut up and just obey the cult leader—maybe they do, because they don’t have any other choice when they’re in an actual cult, when they can’t leave—but they actually do question, and they do resist, and they do internally field outs. The thing with MAGA voters is they don’t have nearly as many constraints on their ability to leave as somebody who’s actually living in Jonestown.

Sargent: Yeah. We should probably clarify that none of this necessarily means Democrats win the House. Obviously they are favored for the House right now, but Trump could rehabilitate himself. Stranger things have happened. You could see him reaching some sort of point in this war pretty soon where he essentially declares victory in some way that’s not completely nuts. You could see something of an economic rebound. Maybe you could see them dial back the paramilitary executions of Americans in U.S. cities.

You could see him come back a little bit, and you could see the House being way more contested than it looks right now. That’s all possible. But right now it seems like his presidency is in some trouble. What are your final thoughts on that? 

Marcotte: I agree. The firing of Noem is a good leading indicator. They had a no-scalps policy in the White House because they didn’t want to give their enemies the satisfaction. And now they have decided that they have to sort of take some of the blame for these political failures, stick it on somebody, throw [them] overboard, and hope that that helps. It shows that they’re running out of options. 

And I agree with you, they could rebound. I wouldn’t just say this is a done deal. My biggest fear is that Trump just pulls out of Iran, declares victory, and hopes that nobody notices the fallout, which is totally possible because Americans don’t pay a ton of attention to foreign policy. 

But at this point in time, they aren’t doing very well. I don’t think that they have any idea of how to make things better. If things improve, it might just be by luck for them. But I don’t know that we’re looking at people that know how to fix the shit show they’ve gotten themselves into.

Sargent: They are certainly not acting as if they are in the middle of a shit show, and they are in the middle of a shit show. It’s just obvious to the rest of the world. Amanda Marcotte, wonderful to talk to you as always. Thank you so much for coming on. 

Marcotte: Thanks for having me.

BONDI IS LYING

 

Let’s be clear: the reason Trump has dragged this nation into war with Iran, against the will of the American people, is to distract from accusations that he raped a 13-year-old child.

That victim’s story appears in the Epstein files. Reporters from The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, decided to investigate—and today, they published their findings: elements of the victims story do, in fact check out. Here is their reporting:

A woman who claims she was abused as a minor by both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump has given the FBI vivid accounts that include aspects of her life corroborated by the The Post and Courier through public records.

Her alleged encounter with Trump sometime around 1984 remains unproven, and the White House March 7 said there is “zero credible evidence” that the woman’s account is true.

Using archived government records and news accounts, The Post and Courier found that the woman provided verifiable details to agents about her family background and its legal entanglements. She offered the name of an Epstein business associate on Hilton Head Island who became a central figure in the drama, with specifics that are reflected in public records.

The accounts describe an early phase in the mid-1980s of potential criminal conduct by Epstein that involved sexual activities with minors on Hilton Head. The alleged victim told the FBI she was under constant pressure from him to recruit more girls there to “come party” with him and his “disgusting” older friends. The incidents almost always involved drugs and alcohol and turned violent with hair-pulling and beatings, according to the woman.

Epstein went on to command a global sex trafficking ring that roped in hundreds of woman, including many teenagers. He faced federal charges of sexually trafficking minors when he died in his federal prison cell in 2019.

In her account about Trump, she claimed that he forced her to commit a sex act on him sometime around 1984. But she provided foggy details to FBI agents, including that the alleged encounter with Trump happened when she traveled north to New York or New Jersey with Epstein, who was a fixture in elite society then. Decades before he sought the presidency, Trump had already become a prominent presence in the New York business and social scenes.

A friend of hers also reported the allegations about Trump to the FBI in 2019. The bureau cited her allegations in an email circulated within the agency and recently made public by the Justice Department. She asked that her friend be protected.

Of the details that The Post and Courier found supported by public records, none related directly to the alleged victim’s claims about Trump.

The Post and Courier is not identifying the woman in keeping with its policy on sexual assault victims. The woman did not respond to messages seeking an interview, and her attorney, Lisa Bloom, a leading sexual assault lawyer, declined comment.

To identify key players in the woman’s account and attempt to evaluate her claims, the newspaper scoured court records, police reports and old newspaper clippings in multiple states. It also deployed a reporter to the West Coast to retrace her steps in a journey that began on a tony resort island along the South Carolina coast.

The alleged victim claimed that Epstein had business contacts in Hilton Head and lived temporarily on the island in two residences. One associate, she said, was a businessman in Ohio who took over a small real estate company on Hilton Head that hired her mother as a broker in the mid-1980s. The associate, who commuted to the island from the Cincinnati area, dated her mother as well, she said.

Records show the woman’s mother bought property in Hilton Head in 1981 for $55,000. At one point, her address was steps from Coligny Beach, now the most popular oceanfront for visitors to the island beaches. She moved often, records show.

In local classified advertisements, the company that employed her mother marketed long-term rentals of homes and villas. It offered an array of lodging, from a seaside cabin to a fully furnished locale at the Four Seasons Resort, with access to a jacuzzi, tennis and handball courts.

Her mom rented one home to financier Jeffrey Epstein, according to the alleged victim. She told federal agents that her mother advertised in a flyer that she, then 13, could provide babysitting services. Epstein, the woman said, summoned her to the house where he began his pattern of abuse.

The Ohio associate who hired her mother also had sex with the teen several times and physically abused her, she told agents. She described him as a man with grey hair and “big ears.” She told agents she believed he was affiliated with a Cincinnati-based college. The Post and Courier confirmed that he was a board member of the for-profit school.

Local newspaper accounts from that time described problems with drug use among the young who were hanging out on Hilton Head’s beaches. The alleged victim said Epstein, who provided marijuana, cocaine and pills to her and others, brought “fat” older men to a pool gathering at a resort hotel.

She only recalled encountering Epstein once in a non-sexual situation, telling agents she bumped into him at a Rick James concert in Savannah, Ga., when she was around age 15. She said he got her drunk. Newspaper records show the “Super Freak” musician performed regularly in the Savannah area at the time.

At one point, her mother became aware that Epstein had nude photos of the teen from their sexual encounters and was demanding money to keep them hidden, the woman told the FBI. The victim said she had seen the photographs in his bedstand, leading to a violent encounter when he discovered her snooping.

She said his extortion demand caused her mother to steal funds from her real estate company.

Epstein had departed investment and trading company Bear Stearns in 1981 after an internal investigation of his trading practices. Around the time of the allegations, he was operating a company he founded in New York. Epstein worked as a troubleshooter for wealthy clients, advising them on issues like corporate embezzlement and offering investment strategies.

The alleged victim said her mother’s boss — the Epstein associate from Ohio — and his company accountant helped the mother fix the books so she could pay off Epstein. The alleged victim told agents that the episode was so stressful her mother began drinking again. Her mother later went to prison near Columbia, the woman told agents.

Records confirm that her mother was implicated in such a crime around this time.

In October 1985, the S.C. Real Estate Commission froze her business escrow account and temporarily suspended her license, according to a local newspaper accounts.

A commission spokesperson, responding to a Post and Courier request, said the records were not immediately available. But other documents show the mother’s boss at the real estate firm sought criminal charges against the mother the following year. She was accused of stealing $22,000 from the escrow account, records show.

Months later, she was charged with six counts of forgery for writing bad checks, a crime she had been accused of in the past as well. Signing off on the charges was then-Solicitor Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh Jr., the grandfather of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh.

Lawyers who represented the mother either declined to comment or did not recall the case. A deputy who transported her from Sumter to Beaufort County after her arrest told The Post and Courier he did not remember picking her up.

The mother ultimately pleaded guilty to all charges, was sentenced to probation and ordered to make monthly $150 restitution payments until she paid off the debt.

She failed to make those payments, and the daughter told the FBI she tracked down her mother’s old boss to ask him for help. She said the Epstein associate coldly told her not to call again and he did not care if she “ended up in the gutter.”

In 1990, a court in Charleston found that the mother violated parole by traveling abroad without permission and by failing to meet the payment schedule.

The alleged victim told the FBI her mother was sent to a state prison near Columbia. State officials confirmed details of the mother’s incarceration.

By that time the daughter was 17 or 18 years old and had moved to Summerville. She left Hilton Head High School before graduating. Records confirm that she attended the school, and it appeared that FBI agents had obtained a copy of its yearbook, “The Halcyon.”

The mother and her daughter remained physically close over the years, living near one another at various times.

Records show that her mother was accused by a Charleston woman of breaking and entering her home in 1996, and sued for eviction by a landlord in Washington state in 1998. She and her daughter eventually both ended up out west. And there, the daughter would level the accusations that have now placed her at center stage in the Epstein saga.

Years after the events on Hilton Head, the woman said both she and her mother felt that Epstein was tracking their movements. Both faced suspicious calls and frightening incidents.

In addition to detailing her abuse at Epstein’s hands, the woman offered vague details across three interviews about her encounter with Trump. She said the incident occurred when he was a leading developer with a new casino in Atlantic City. She said she was led to Trump in a “very tall building with huge rooms.” The future president instructed others to leave the room, she said, and allegedly told her, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.”

She said he unzipped his pants and forced her to perform a sex act. The alleged victim told the FBI she “bit the (expletive) out of it,” causing Trump to slap her across the face and curse at her.

It is unclear from the interview records how long she stayed in the New York area, but she had family connections in the state.

In her talks with the FBI, the woman also detailed calls to her mother at an assisted living facility on the West Coast, where both of them had settled. The Post and Courier verified that the mother used a private nursing care home as an address in her declining years. A death record matches the mother’s age and name, but Washington state does not publicly release other identifying details.

It is common for sexual trauma victims to have trouble recollecting specifics of abusive incidents, according to experts. The FBI recognized this during its decades-long Epstein investigation and provided free counseling services to victims.

One agent involved in the woman’s interviews with the FBI was a psychologist, trained in victim trauma. Critical elements of the woman’s story are difficult to verify without the ability to call witnesses, conduct sworn interviews and subpoena financial records. It is unclear whether the FBI attempted such an investigation.

The woman repeatedly told FBI agents she believed it served no purpose to tell her story because the events occurred so long ago. Trump had also been elected president in 2016. She informed agents in August, 2019 that she wanted them to know she had sued Epstein’s estate, in case it posed a conflict with their investigation.

In a statement to The Post and Courier, Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the allegations “baseless accusations from decades ago’’ that “are backed by zero evidence or facts.” She described the alleged victim as "a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history."

After her time with Epstein, the alleged victim accumulated a record of criminal charges, drug dependency and domestic turmoil. She had a daughter and was prosecuted for filing false claims for food stamp applications. The alleged victim avoided prison by completing a drug diversion program.

The alleged victim had a turbulent domestic life, with three marriages including one that lasted only a few weeks. Her mother shows up in court records as a witness in a violent domestic incident between her daughter and her first husband, who declined to speak when a reporter approached him at his door.

The alleged victim eventually returned to the East Coast and lived with relatives in Georgia, developing a romantic relationship with a terminally-ill man who was saving money for his funeral.

She stole an envelope filled with cash from him and spent a year in the county jail for it. Her public defender told The Post and Courier that she described her life to him as having been permanently scarred by her experience with Epstein.