Trump needs a new distraction

Congress is back, Epstein's emails are out, and GOP leadership is scrambling

- ROBIN ABCARIAN COLUMNIST

RONALDO SCHEMIDT AFP/Getty Images THE PRESIDENT once supported releasing the Epstein files to appease his MAGA base. Now he calls it a Democratic deflection.

WATCHING Our national political dumpster fires the longest government shutdown in history, the nearly eight-week shuttering of the House of Representatives - one really has to wonder: What the hell was that? The shutdown occurred because Democratic senators withheld their votes on a resolution that would continue to fund the government. Why? They wanted to reverse Medicaid cuts and extend the tax credits that make health insurance possible for millions of low-income Americans. Republicans, who would rather give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, insisted they would deal with the health insurance issue separately, at a later date. (Insert eye roll here.) For 43 painful days, Democrats held firm. And then they caved.

Six Democrats and one Independent joined every Republican in a vote to end the shutdown. I'm hard pressed to see what Americans got in return.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, in a bizarre effort to prevent a vote on the measure that could lead to the government's release of the Epstein files, sent his colleagues home for two months, and refused to swear in a newly elected Democratic representative, all to forestall such a vote. And then he caved.