The GOP thought it was throwing a fast punch on Trump’s behalf — the sort of drive-by swing that performs effectively on-line and disappears by the following information cycle. As an alternative, it cracked open a door it clearly didn’t imply to, giving California Gov. Gavin Newsom a gap so sharp and so humiliating it’s now rippling again towards President Donald Trump in methods Republicans weren’t ready for.
It began on Friday Jan. 23 when Newsom posted a photograph of himself sitting at a desk working and captioned it “The person by no means stops working!”
The submit was a poke at Trump over his White Home communications crew, together with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who’ve claimed repeatedly that Trump dozing off in public at White Home conferences and occasions is because of the truth that “he’s all the time working.”
But it surely rapidly escalated from there. The GOP’s official X account then reposted Newsom’s picture beneath a brand new meme displaying the governor sitting at that desk however drawing an image of a smiling Trump surrounded by hearts.
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To not be outdone, Newsom went in for the kill posting a meme of the again of Trump drawing the birthday letter of a unadorned lady linked to the President’s former shut good friend and convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein. He didn’t must say one single phrase to get his message throughout.
That submit went wildly viral with 128, 000 views and counting, greater than 8,300 reposts, and greater than 2,000 feedback.
Newsom stirring the Epstein pot resulted in simply what you’d count on. Social media exploded, greater than rising to the event to troll Trump and joke concerning the ongoing scandal.
“Now how tf do you get better from that,” X person Fish Flakes demanded together with a half dozen skeletons along with his caption above a video clip of a startled gerbil.
One other X person merely responded, “LMFAOOOOO.”
X person and award successful designer Chris Wallace most likely stated it greatest: “Rattling the @GOP bought completely SMOKED lmao.”
The Wall Road Journal first reported the existence of the letter final summer season, revealing buddies of the disgraced financier despatched him racy playing cards for his fiftieth birthday, together with an especially vulgar one from Trump with a drawing of a unadorned lady on it and his signature throughout the genital space.
The letters have been then put collectively in a leather-bound e book by Epstein’s then-girlfriend convicted intercourse offender Ghislaine Maxwell, in line with the Journal.
A livid Trump went ballistic and sued WSJ and its proprietor Rupert Murdoch for a $10 billion lawsuit, calling the letter on the time of the report “a pretend factor.”
Trump has repeatedly denied he wrote or signed the letter, however Trump and Epstein have been greatest buddies on the time and handwriting specialists have verified Trump’s signature.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Lower than two weeks later, Trump was again in full defensive mode following the discharge of hundreds of thousands of further emails and paperwork tied to Epstein, a flood of fabric that has reignited scrutiny he’s been attempting — and failing — to outrun.
In latest days, the president has lashed out publicly, threatening lawsuits and insisting that journalist Michael Wolff and Epstein himself conspired to “take him down,” a declare that has solely amplified consideration quite than smothered it.
Towards that backdrop, the GOP’s determination to poke at Newsom didn’t land as a intelligent distraction — it cracked open a contemporary line of assault, handing Newsom a gap to pull Trump proper again into the Epstein narrative.
Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted intercourse offender, had ties to a number of the strongest individuals on the planet, together with presidents, billionaires and even royalty. Trump frolicked with him throughout the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties however insists he by no means went to Epstein’s non-public island and that he’s not on the so-called “consumer checklist,” however his former bromance buddy tech billionaire Elon Musk claims he’s seen the checklist and Trump is on it.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 on expenses associated to intercourse trafficking minors and allegedly had a “consumer checklist” with the names of those that used his providers. He died by suicide in a Manhattan jail not lengthy after his arrest.
The DOJ has but to launch all of the recordsdata and have stonewalled for months, even after Trump signed a legislation mandating the discharge by Dec. 19. Now a brand new court docket motion is attempting to pressure them to abide by the legislation and launch the recordsdata of their entirety.
