Or maybe they’re just afraid to say it. Yesterday, the NY Times ran a palace intrigue story about the Trump administration’s attempt to manage the fallout from the Epstein files. It’s clearly informed by Vice-President Vance’s people, but it’s still pretty interesting.

But it’s clear from reading the story that the NY Times reporters along with the political press corps in general seems either unable or unwilling to understand that the Epstein Files are not (just) a ‘sex scandal’ that could topple Trump, but a load-bearing structure for conspiracist MAGA ideology. Throughout the entire story, which is about how they really did not manage the Epstein files well, there is no attempt to explain at all why this scandal mattered to the faithful and other scandals, like being an adjudicated rapist, did not.

The reporters never really broach why the Epstein Files are so important to MAGA et alia. There are some hints, in that NY Times British crossword clue style, where they imply Vance, Patel, and Bogino are true-believer conspiracists, so unlike the other members of the Trump administration, they understand what the Epstein Files mean to MAGA and the Republican faithful.

In 2026, if you’re covering the Epstein files and you can’t explain to your readers that the Epstein files, which to the Republican base are just the latest iteration of QAnon-Comet Ping Pong conspiracies, offer meaning and (pseduo)explanation for the Republican faithful, then you really are failing to inform your readers.

Whether this is a lack of understanding or an unwillingness to present the unvarnished truth is left as an exercise for the reader.