With the latest shift by President Donald Trump on releasing the Epstein files held by the U.S. Department of Justice – he’s now for it after being against it after being for it – the MAGA base may finally get to view the documents it’s long wanted to see. On the afternoon of Nov. 18, 2025, the House voted overwhelmingly to seek release of the files, with only one Republican voting against the measure. The Senate later in the day agreed unanimously to pass the measure and send it on to the president for his signature. The Conversation’s politics editor, Naomi Schalit, talked with scholar Alex Hinton, who has studied MAGA for years, about Make America Great Again Republicans’ sustained interest in the case of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Hinton explains how MAGA’s interest in the case fits into what he knows about the group of die-hard Trump supporters.

You are an expert on MAGA. How do you learn what you know about MAGA?

I’m a cultural anthropologist, and what we do is field work. We go where the people we’re studying live, act, talk. We observe and sort of hang out and see what happens. We listen and then we unpack themes. We try and understand the meaning systems that undergird whatever group we’re studying. And then, of course, there’s interviewing.

It appears that MAGA, Trump’s core supporters, are very concerned about various aspects of the Epstein story, including the release of documents that are in the possession of the U.S. government. Are they, in fact, concerned about this?

The answer is yes, but there’s also a sort of........

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