IMMEDIATE RELEASE 24 July 2025WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUNDToday’s Events in Historical PerspectiveAmerica’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932Attack and distractBy Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – In the extreme, an unscrupulous leader in trouble at home seeks trouble abroad, often through military adventurism, or the manufacturing of domestic bogey men and groups. President Donald Trump, never known for scruples, has gone over the top with bogeyman propaganda, attacking opponents and distracting the public to wend his way out of the Epstein fiasco. That failing, he could resort to his foreign claims on Canada, Greenland, and Panama.Elon Musk delivered an explosive comment on June 7 following his public breakup with Trump, setting the stage for a summer scandal that is consuming the White House by posting on social media in a since-deleted tweet that President Trump was “in the Epstein files.”Trump has gone into such overdrive trying to contain the scandal that the Republican Speaker of the House sent lawmakers home early for the summer recess rather than face repeated calls for votes to force the administration to release the Epstein files.Trump is now caught up in his lies about what he knew and when he knew it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump in May that his name appeared in the Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex trafficker who died in federal prison in an apparent suicide in August 2019.Being “in the files” does not necessarily mean wrongdoing. Lots of rich and famous men hobnobbed with Epstein, who made buckets of money as a Wall Street financier before his career turned to procuring underage girls.Trump could have said that yes, he was friends with Epstein, rode on his private plane, went to his parties – and that was it. After they had a falling out over a real estate deal 20 years ago, there was no communication, or was there?Instead, he denied in July that Bondi had told him any such thing in May about being in the Epstein files.Whatever the full story, Trump is furiously trying to redirect media attention with some of the most outlandish schemes and outbursts, recently boasting to donors that in his first term as president, he warned Russian President Putin he would bomb Moscow if he invaded Ukraine. Resurrecting this claim now is nothing less than a threat of nuclear war, and Russia responded in kind, asking Trump if he would like to be the last American president.Recently in the Oval Office, he used the backdrop of a visit by Philippines President Marcos to accuse former President Obama of “treason,” a crime punishable by death, for allegedly trying to “rig” the 2016 election, which Trump won. Trump followed up with an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested in the Oval Office.A spokesperson for Obama said, “These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” pointing out that nothing the Trump administration asserts “undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”For those who have not yet been distracted away from Epstein, Trump arranged a visit to the Federal Reserve headquarters, a nearly 100-year-old building that is undergoing renovations. As part of his pressure campaign to oust Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he calls “stupid” for refusing to lower interest rates, Trump is building a case that Powell is responsible for cost overruns in the renovation and may have committed fraud.Next, Trump turned on Fox News billionaire Rupert Murdoch for failing to stop his Wall Street Journal from breaking stories about his Epstein connection.Trump cannot help himself. His MO is to attack anyone who crosses him and then divert and suppress the fallout with whatever he can concoct. But attacking the two billionaires, Murdoch and Musk, who did more than anyone else to get him elected, is bizarre.So, here is Trump trying to distract the public by horrifically name-calling Obama and Powell, while attacking the billionaire hands that fed him, rational ploys from an irrational leader, except for one problem. The Epstein matter is building, not diminishing. Trump’s attack and distract tactics are failing.See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).Twitter: @douglas_cohn© 2024 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
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