Fareed Zakaria: There is a larger problem for Trump in the Epstein chaos
Source: CNN
There is a larger problem for Trump in the Epstein chaos
PUBLISHED Jul 27, 2025, 8:00 AM ET
Analysis by Fareed Zakaria
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The journalist Anna Merlan brought the story up to date in a deeply reported 2019 book, “Republic of Lies,” in which she argued that in recent decades, conspiracy theories entered into mainstream politics. Unlike earlier eras when conspiracy theorists were mostly powerless outsiders, they are now central — and increasingly normalized — figures in American political and cultural life.
Donald Trump is the main character in this story, having come to power and returned to power after aggressively promoting birtherism, election fraud and many other conspiracies. He has also brought into the mainstream people like Alex Jones and Kash Patel, who have trafficked in even more extreme theories and insinuations. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, spread the lie that Hillary Clinton was connected to child sex rings.
The challenge for Trump is that, having long fanned the flames of anti-statism and anti-elitism, he now sits in the White House, running the state and its elites. His administration has released thousands of files about the murders of JFK, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
There were no smoking guns revealing any major conspiracy, but no one in the administration can quite bring themselves to admit that. It would suggest that prior administrations and elites had not in fact been lying to the American people. But to do that is to lose credibility with their base.
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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/27/politics/trump-epstein-conspiracy-theories-fires