The Felon Needs New Targets for Distraction: Bad Bunny, Iran, and Gavin Newsom?

Friday the Felon's corrupt DOJ released three million documents relating to the Epstein scandal some of which had allegations of sexual abuse by the Felon and some of which suddenly disappeared, seemingly once the DOJ hacks realized just how bad the accusations looked for the Felon.   The Felon has insanely claimed the released files exonerate him yet if one reads the since deleted materials that claim - like most of what comes from the Felon's lips - is clearly a lie and detached from objective reality.  He even has threatened to sue the Epstein estate - something that would open discovery and arguably force the Felon to have to be deposed. Add to this the fact that his poll numbers are plummeting, the economy is still struggling with high prices, and the ICE invasion of Minneapolis is losing its value as a distraction from the Epstein scandal.  The fact that Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick and others in the Felon's regime were also named in the documents released by DOJ has failed to take focus off the Felon.  What's a pedophile to do?  A piece at Vanity Fair muses that new targets will be needed to keep the media from fully focuses on the damning allegations now all over the Internet and ponders who/what the new distractions will be.  Here are article highlights:

Sleep with one eye open, Gavin Newsom; brace yourself for more verbal abuse, transgender athletes; and watch your back, Xi Jinping: President Donald Trump needs a new target.

This was true even before ICE and Border Patrol agents shot and killed two protesters in Minnesota in the past two weeks, violence that has provoked widespread revulsion. CNN’s most recent polling shows ICE with a net approval rating of negative 27; Axios found the steepest shift in opinion was among independents, with 67% saying they have little confidence in ICE; and more than one third of Trump’s own voters disapproved of his deportation tactics—even before the shooting of Alex Pretti. Those events came as voters soured on Trump’s economic record; the right wing is still frustrated by the Justice Department’s foot-dragging on the Epstein files; and Trump’s poll numbers have continued sinking.

Declaring a new main nemesis is how Trump tries to reset, how he attempts to change the media narrative. Previous distractions have included claiming that Barack Obama conspired to tie Trump to Russian election meddling and floating the possibility of stripping Rosie O’Donnell of her American citizenship. Enemies are Trump’s oxygen, both personally and politically.

Trump’s team ended his first year back in the White House with an aggressive flourish: snatching President Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, threatening to seize Greenland, and launching a criminal investigation of Fed chairman Jerome Powell. Now the Minnesota outrages have put Trump, for once, on his heels, and badly in need of someone else to beat on.

So who’s next?

Last weekend, Trump took shots at Bad Bunny and Green Day, the musical acts performing at this year’s Super Bowl—both of whom are vocal Trump critics. But those slights are mere sugar highs for the president, and they won’t last past the end of the game.

Trump loves insulting Newsom, who is both a leading contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination and an eager troll himself. The California governor showed up at Davos last week with kneepads he said were intended for CEOs groveling to Trump. Newsom was looking to get under the president’s skin, and he succeeded . . . .

But the Trump-Newsom sparring is also a tired rerun, and could go the way “Sleepy Joe Biden” has grown equally stale. “I did a focus group with MAGA types recently,” a veteran political strategist tells me. “And even they said, ‘Give it up already—the guy isn’t president anymore.’”

Recently sworn-in New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani once seemed positioned to be the perfect foil for the president . . . But Trump tossed gushed over Mamdani during the mayor-elect’s visit to the White House in late November. “The party was gearing up to make Mamdani the Democratic poster boy,” says Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist turned Trump critic, “and then Trump has that meeting where it looks like he and Mamdani are going to get engaged.”

Trump recently did a mocking “impression” of a transgender weightlifter during a speech to House Republicans, and in an Iowa speech this week he claimed immigrants might “blow up our shopping centers, blow up our farms, kill people.” In advance of the midterms, Trump will likely ramp up his rhetoric about Democrats “rigging” elections. He will keep playing these and other greatest hits because they continue to work with his MAGA base. . . . . “As long as he can keep reminding them that they hate the same people, they will continue to support him.”

Yet Trump’s attacks and distractions may be yielding diminishing returns beyond his base. Polling at the end of his first year back in the White House showed a strong majority of independents believing the country was worse off, with the economy driving the unhappiness. Trump’s revived threats against Iran and his continued slagging of Ilhan Omar won’t satisfy those concerns. “These recent poll numbers are rough, but I think he can get some of it back,” Steinhauser says. “The way to do that is to focus more on jobs and the economy.”

Which is why, as he searches for new sparring partners, blaming China presents an intriguing option. “A foreign enemy is always better for rallying support,” Madrid says. “And China could tie together a lot of things for Trump: They’re a military threat, they’re sending us fentanyl, they’re the cause of our economic problems!”

The president has a trip to Beijing scheduled for April. Trump could either amp up the antagonism or claim to have pulled off a brilliant America First deal—though neither approach would, or should, put the Minnesota mess behind him completely.