It's Sunday, July the 13th. I'm Ali Valshi. We begin this hour with the rift that's driving a wedge through MAGA world.

Today, Donald Trump and his allies are in damage control mode as the president faces a revolt among his base following his administration's release of the Epstein files, the documents

related to the criminal case of Jeffrey Epstein. Many of his supporters feel that what's been

released is not satisfactory or transparent enough, particularly since it doesn't include a long

rumored client list. The fallout's been huge, in fact, so big that it's caused the president to send out this essay-length post on Truth Social last night to try to quell the masses and take the heat off his embattled Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Trump wrote, quote, what's going on with my boys and in some cases gals?

They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's doing a fantastic job.

We're one team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening. We have a perfect administration.

The talk of the world and selfish people are trying to hurt it all over a guy who never dies,

Jeffrey Epstein. Trump then goes on to write 334 more words trying to depict the Epstein file as the work of,

in his words, radical left lunatics. FBI director Cash Patel also weighed in on social media yesterday,

reinforcing his support for Trump and trying to dismiss the growing uproar from the base.

Quote, the conspiracy theories just aren't true.

Never have been.

It's an honor to serve the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and I'll continue

to do so for as long as he calls on me.

But of course, many of the people who've become embroiled in the scandal are people

who pandered and in some cases profited off of speculation about the Epstein

files for many years. Trump in particular leaned into many baseless conspiracy theories like

QAnon to fuel his political rise, but at least some of his supporters actually do believe in

these conspiracies, no matter how unbelievable, they may seem to the rest of us. And after a decade

of feeding those fantasies and promising

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