'Brutal disregard': How Trump resembles entertainer caught on hot mic deriding fans
President Donald Trump sparked his most recent mess like a famed entertainer caught on a hot mic disparaging his adoring fans, New York Times’ columnist Maureen Dowd wrote Saturday.
Trump’s devoted MAGA base thought he’d walk into his second term in White House shedding light on the darkness of conspiracy theories they are convinced the Deep State is keeping quiet.
Instead, wrote Dowd, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal he’s now buried in has turned that belief on its head.
“So the guy who spent his lifetime saying the deep state hides things from you and represses you is now saying ‘We’ve got nothing to hide, trust me,” wrote Dowd, quoting Trump biographer Tim O’Brien.
“And the people who follow him don’t. They think he’s just as bad as the people he criticized before he became president.”
The furor that has engulfed Trump for more than a week involves a client list MAGA has long believed incriminates powerful people associated with convicted sex trafficker Epstein.
Trump has fanned that theory for years — until his attorney general suddenly declared there was no list, and sparked uproar among his base.
He then took to Truth Social to disparage the “weaklings” and his “PAST supporters” who believed something was being hidden.
“It’s mythic, being devoured by the forces you unleashed,” wrote Dowd.
“Trump has trafficked in conspiracy theories since the despicable “birther” one about Barack Obama. Now that whirlpool of dark innuendo has sucked him down. He can no longer control the Epstein conspiracy madness inflamed by his top officials.”
In the pinnacle of her column, Dowd remembers Lonesome Rhodes, an entertainer in the 1957 movie “A Face in the Crowd” whose own actions destroy his standing with his loving audience.
“Engorged by flattery and riches, [Rhodes] has a narcissistic explosion,” she wrote.
“Not realizing the woman he betrayed flipped on his microphone, he calls his loyal fans ‘morons,’ ‘miserable slobs’ and ‘trained seals.’
“I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to ’em for caviar,” he crows, grinning.
“Trump’s Truth Social posts backing up Pam Bondi’s claim that the Epstein files were much ado about nothing showed that same brutal disregard for his devout fans. They had taken him seriously? What fools!”