by Conspiracy theories were a favorite of Donald Trump’s as a presidential candidate.
His political career began with him spreading the myth that The United States is not where President Obama was born. He incorrectly claimed in 2024 that noncitizens would cast ballots in the November election and skew the outcome in favor of Democrats. On a debate platform, he said that Ohio’s immigrants were consuming people’s pets. He told Fox News, “I guess I would release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, too,” in addition to his pledge to reveal government information on the death of John F. Kennedy and September 11, 2001.
However, in his role as president, he is discovering that it is much simpler to initiate a conspiracy theory than to dispel one.
Trump is currently confronting this difficulty as his supporters openly protest his administration’s choice to withhold additional information concerning Epstein, the convicted sexual offender who socialized with the world’s elite before taking his own life in prison in 2019.
Putting the genie back in the bottle
You could understand their need for further information. After these men spent years deceiving their audiences, Trump appointed right-wing media celebrities and outspoken Epstein conspiracy theorists Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to lead the FBI. Attorney General Pam Bondi made lofty promises on the case this spring, but they haven’t materialized.
However, it turns out that being a conspiracy theorist is much easier when you are not the president, you do not have authority over both chambers of Congress, and you have not personally chosen the heads of the country’s top investigative organizations.
Trump has attempted to restore the status quo. He reprimanded a reporter who inquired about the issue during last week’s cabinet meeting. Do you still have Jeffrey Epstein in mind? and then, in a long social media message, reprimanded his followers over the weekend.
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