CNN’s Abby Phillip Torpedoes Trump Fan Making Excuses Over ‘Flippant’ Epstein Riffs

CNN anchor Abby Phillip torpedoed Trump defender and Federalist reporter Brianna Lyman’s excuse for President Donald Trump being “flippant” over the Epstein Files in comments to reporters.

Trump was asked about the arrest of former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the brother of King Charles III, on charges related to Epstein, but not to sexual misconduct allegations. Trump leapt to proclaim his own supposed “exoneration” and expressed sadness for the family — of the arrested Epstein pal.

The president has been called out other times for seeming to prioritize himself over the survivors and victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

On Thursday’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Lyman explained why she believes Trump “comes across as flippant sometimes with Epstein,” and Phillip responded with a one-sentence retort:

BRIANNA LYMAN: Yes. I mean, again, I think to everyone’s point at this table, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, they were not trafficking young women and children to phantom people, right?

And I think that MAGA’s base brought this to the forefront of the conversation. They were the ones who got Trump to really listen, because this has been — to your point, it wasn’t, you know, kind of maligned as a conspiracy theory 10, 15 years ago, people or QAnon, if you said that there was a cabal of elites who were doing this to children. And President Trump had his ear to the ground. He listened to them. And I think that there are supporters out there who are saying, okay, we have these redacted files, but where’s the accountability coming from that?

That being said, I think two things can be true at once. President Trump has began to release them. We still haven’t seen the type of accountability that most people want to see when it comes to children being sex trafficked.

Two, polling indicates that this is surprisingly, as much as we talk about it, not as big of a campaign issue as something like immigration, economy, crime, and I think that you see President Trump trying to focus on those things, which is why maybe he comes across as flippant sometimes with Epstein, just because he’s saying, okay, here’s what the base cares about, here’s what the voters are saying.

So, I don’t necessarily know if it’s him just saying, you know, screw the Epstein files. I think he’s just saying, this is the priorities right now I’m speaking to.

PHILLIP: I’ve just never heard him say anything about the victims. It’s as simple as that.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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