Terrified Trump is slinging ‘zombie food’ to distract his base from Jeffrey Epstein

Episode Summary Donald Trump in an unfamiliar situation. After years of being able to tell his followers what to think about almost everything, many of the MAGA faithful are upset at his administration for refusing to release the government’s files on the infamous sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.When he was running for office last year, Trump and many of the people who work in the highest levels of his administration repeatedly promised that they would release the documents on Epstein, including FBI, director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino, and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Now, both Bondi and Trump are saying that they will not be releasing the Epstein files.This refusal has been extremely upsetting to many Trump voters because believing that imaginary Democratic pedophiles secretly rule the world has become almost the cornerstone of being a Republican in the Trump era.  Faced such massive inter-party descent, the administration has taken to a strategy that they reportedly refer to as “zombie food,” throwing out stories that they know know to be nonsense in order to distract MAGA partisans from Trump’s Epstein betrayal.In the past several weeks, Trump has offered a veritable zombie food buffet of narratives to supporters. But the biggest dish by far seems to be a new effort re-frame the 2016 Russian hack and influence campaign as actually a secret plot by Trump’s former opponent, Hillary Clinton, and former President Barack Obama.None of this is real, needless say, but I think particular episode is worth digging into further in real-time since we can see right now how zombie food is made and served up to the MAGA masses. Joining the show to discuss is Renée DiResta, a long-time friend of the show who has direct knowledge of this particular history because she was one of numerous experts who worked with the Senate Intelligence Committee to analyze the Russian hacking and disinformation campaign.The video of this episode is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhereTheory of Change brings you in-depth conversations on politics, technology, and media like nowhere else. Please subscribe to stay in touch!Related Content◘ The internet is a safe space for lying now, thanks to congressional Republicans◘ Covid contrarians were far more wrong than scientists were◘ What today’s internet propagandists owe to yesterday’s tobacco advertising executives◘ Countering the economics of disinformation◘ America’s political divide is psychological more than ideological◘ What’s actually in Tulsi Gabbard’s document dump?Audio Chapters00:00 — Introduction08:26 — Marco Rubio and Senate Republicans said Russia tried to help Trump in 201612:21 — Trump’s “zombie food” distraction strategy15:13 — The Sydney Sweeney hoax controversy18:29 — File dumps as fake disclosure22:25 — Tulsi Gabbard’s desperation to reconcile with Trump after Iran debacle28:22 — Russian trolls only praised Clinton to damn her30:06 — Russian troll tactics34:15 — Right-wing figures falsely conflating media headlines with government actions37:30 — John Durham turned up nothing compared to Robert Mueller41:56 — Kash Patel’s burn bag story44:20 — What the Durham Report annex actually says48:48 — Right-wing media’s lower reading comprehension?55:48 — Russian idiom snafus01:00:05 — Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit plus.flux.community/subscribe