Shit is going to come out. The birthday card was the tip of the iceberg. Musk wouldn’t have talked shit about him being in there if he hadn’t seen or heard something, not to mention it went from Bondi saying she had the list on her desk to saying there never was a list and Trump playing dumb. Something spooked Trump Bigly.
There is a pretty rabid group that overlaps with the right and are obsessed with the Epstein stuff and child trafficking and they care more about that and conspiracy theories than any party politics. Even if they are small, they are vocal, and they give no fucks if any Republicans go down as long as they expose Hollyweird and Clinton and Prince Andrew or whatever else is their obsession.
I don’t have a timeline handy, but it feels like Trump has been ramping shit up to distract people, whether it was Venezuelan or the ICE/National Guard stuff. Recently bias, maybe, but Trump knows how to distract his base.
Ask any MAGA types in your life if they support releasing the Epstein files. You’ll get some interesting responses.