Name: Republican divide widens over Epstein files, Carlson–Fuentes interview
Uploaded: 2025-11-18T01:19:00.933Z
Duration: 4 min 10 s
Description: President Trump has appeared to change his tune on the release of the Epstein files after members of his party started to go against his effort to oppose their release. CBS News chief Robert Costa examines the divisions within the GOP that have been sparked by the Epstein files and a recent interview Tucker Carlson conducted with Nick Fuentes.

President Trump has appeared to change his tune on the release of the Epstein files after members of his party started to go against his effort to oppose their release. CBS News chief Robert Costa examines the divisions within the GOP that have been sparked by the Epstein files and a recent interview Tucker Carlson conducted with Nick Fuentes.

Washington

The Republican Party is experiencing increased internal division following President Trump's shift in position regarding the release of the Epstein files, a move prompted by opposition from within his own party. Trump also withdrew support from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after she criticized party members who voted against the files' release and reported receiving threats.

Further discord has emerged over Tucker Carlson's interview with Nick Fuentes, identified by the DOJ as a white supremacist. While Trump defended Carlson, other Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, condemned the interview, highlighting ongoing tensions about how to address controversial figures within the party. Amid these disputes, advisers are encouraging Trump to focus on economic issues ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Republican divide widens over Epstein files, Carlson–Fuentes interview

As we've been reporting, President Trump has appeared to change his tune on the release of the Epstein files after members of his own party started to go against his effort to oppose the release. The files have been a major point of contention, even among the president's most fervent supporters. On Friday, President Trump said he was withdrawing his support for Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene says she has been receiving death threats after she criticized members of her own party for voting against the release of the Epstein files. For more, let's bring in CBS News Chief Washington Analyst Robert Costa. Thank you so much for being here. President Trump has long confronted and reexamined the pillars that once defined conservatism. So with that in mind, chasms among the party, they're nothing new, but what is unique about this moment? Well, this is another moment where we see members of Congress pressuring a presidential administration to nudge the Justice Department along on a certain investigation, in this case the Epstein investigation. And for so many presidencies, it's not just about Republican or Democrat. This is a dynamic that often confronts those who are commander in chief. Think about President Biden. Just a few years ago, there was a clamor among some Democrats to do more in terms of prosecutions of former President Trump and his allies regarding classified documents and their usage about the conduct of many people on January 6th, 2021, around the Capitol attack and the insurrection effort. And so that was one pressure point in a recent Democratic administration. We've seen them in previous Republican administrations, too. What makes it so interesting is that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman, is such a fervent ally of President Trump. We are also seeing a divide in MAGA World over Tucker Carlson's interview of Nick Fuentes, who the DOJ has identified as a white supremacist. President Trump defended Carlson, while others, including Senator Ted Cruz, have condemned the interview. How do you view this divide? This is something that goes back decades. Think about William F. Buckley, Jr., the leader of National Review, the late conservative in the 1960s, dealing with the John Birch Society, dealing with different people on the right, who he found were unseemly to be part of the conservative movement. He had to confront that element, and he did. You're seeing President Trump being forced to confront Nick Fuentes, who has his own views on when it comes to all of these different issues, where he has made racist comments, anti-Semitic comments that have really fueled incendiary people online to support him and, of course, to criticize him. But you don't see every conservative backing away from Nick Fuentes. This gets to some of the tension right now in the GOP about how to handle some of these voices, having an engagement with them versus putting them in a silo and, in a sense, ostracizing them from the right. The tension point is how to handle it, and that's something that's not going away. And if you run for president in 2028 on the Republican ticket, you're going to confront this question as well. President Trump has started to backtrack on tariffs a bit over continued pressure and concerns about rising prices. Are you hearing any worries in his inner circle on the issue of affordability? Well, it's an interesting point you made about trade. There's certainly concern among some in the broader Trump orbit about President Trump's commitment to tariff policy, but so few people are willing to confront him in a major way politically on this because they know this is an issue that goes back decades for President Trump. He is someone who has always been committed to a protectionist trade policy. So they are nudging him, though, privately, I'm told by several sources, to talk more about affordability. So it's not actually that surprising, even though he has been very critical of the New York mayor-elect, Zoran Mamdani. President Trump and Republicans want to be talking about affordability and not Jeffrey Epstein and not all these other issues ahead of the 2026 midterms. They want to be talking about health care costs, the economy. They know that's where they're potentially vulnerable in some of these swing districts and swing states. Robert Costa, thanks for joining The Daily Report. Thank you.

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