SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
How is the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files playing among the president's base? We're going to put that question to Frank Luntz. He's a longtime political analyst and pollster. Frank, good morning.
FRANK LUNTZ: Good morning.
PFEIFFER: Frank, all week long we've been hearing media headlines, right-wing influencers, prominent Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace saying they're upset about the Epstein files, want them released. But it is not clear to us how much this matters among his MAGA base, based on your years of focus groups and polls with Trump supporters, how much do they care about this?
LUNTZ: So I've done more than two dozen focus groups specifically on Donald Trump's behavior going back over the last 10 years, and this guy is Teflon, as your previous reporter reported. But this may be different. And I want to set the context. This legislation that deals with tax cuts, budget cuts, changes to Medicaid, wasteful Washington spending, that is the priority among voters.
But I've seen this before. Whenever you have a story of a salacious nature such as the Epstein controversy, people say that they prioritize the things that they think will generate respect for their point of view, but what they do is they still pay attention. So the president has to accept the fact that even among Republicans, among his own supporters, they are listening. They are watching. But I can tell you that this is not their priority. They care more about the legislation than they do this scandal.
PFEIFFER: So you're saying they're paying attention. But what Trump cares about is, will it affect their votes for me? So would some MAGA voters not vote for Trump if they find out that there's something damning about him in the Epstein files?
LUNTZ: Well, they're never going to have another chance to vote for him again. He's done. The question now is, do they vote for or against Republicans next year in the midterm elections? Obviously, he wants to keep a majority. And I will assert, having watched this person have four different cases against him, 91 felony accounts, still getting reelected as president that he has a Teflon that is unshakable.
That said, this is going to be an irritant, and at the very moment that House Republicans and Senate Republicans need to be talking about that legislation, need to be explaining to voters why they should support it, which they don't. This is very dangerous for them because it causes voters to think about other issues, other concerns. And it's a distraction that's very dangerous.
PFEIFFER: So as you said, Trump is not allowed to run again. But there are many Republican lawmakers looking at the midterms thinking, I don't want to have to field questions from this from my constituents. For people who do not like Donald Trump, there are lots of other things over the years they think people shouldn't like him for. But why, among Trump's supporters, would the Epstein issue be the one thing that makes them think, I'm not sure about this, I don't like this?
LUNTZ: Because they demand the truth from the president. It's one of the reasons why people began to support Trump back in 2015, 2016. They felt like they weren't getting it from the opponents. Donald Trump has set a level of truth. Now, we know that what he says is...
PFEIFFER: They think this is the first thing they haven't heard the truth about from Trump?
LUNTZ: Actually, yes. And that's something very important that we know, that Donald Trump stretches the truth, breaks the truth on press conferences, in debates. But his own people were prepared to support him. But when you have some of these major Trump advocates, these MAGA advocates saying that they need to see more, they need to hear more, that this is not enough, that is a problem for the president.
But it's still only a problem. It is not a threat to his credibility at this moment, other than being a horrible distraction at the very instance when he needs to be talking about the legislation that was just passed. You are correct. I want to emphasize, you're correct to raise this issue that it will have an impact on the 2026 election. But at this point, that impact is to distract Republicans from focusing on the things that voters care about most.
PFEIFFER: As we know, the House Speaker Mike Johnson sent Congress home early to avoid a vote on the Epstein files. Once they come back, and if they have to vote on this later, will MAGA supporters have forgotten about it by then?
LUNTZ: I don't believe so. We have to see what comes out. There are going to be these hearings in August, so by the time they come back in September, it's going to be front and center. If this is a distraction, the administration does not want to be fielding this. But it is not a voter issue at this point.
PFEIFFER: If Johnson's delay of the vote isn't enough to make MAGA supporters forget about this, what do you think Trump could do to make this go away?
LUNTZ: In the end, he'll have to release files. In the end, he'll have to encourage or instruct the Justice Department to make public everything that it knows about this issue.
PFEIFFER: Can you think of anything that might be in those files that could get revealed that would make MAGA supporters turn against Trump?
LUNTZ: They don't like being lied to. And it's one of the reasons why they came to him in 2015 and 2016. And I know how that sounds to the viewers of NPR. But remember, the Trump voter has a different definition of trust and truth than those who voted against him. If they believe that their faith in the president was undeserved and was ignored, they will be very angry. But they don't feel that way right now. They simply have questions. And what we are seeing is those questions being put forward and the public saying, I want to know more.
PFEIFFER: Frank Luntz is a longtime political analyst and pollster. Frank, thank you.
LUNTZ: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JONNY NASH'S "EXIT THREE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
