Michael Barbaro

They saw they were going to lose this vote.

And then they backed it.

And then they decided to back it.

If there's a cost to this all, I think your colleague, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, just identified it out there at that news conference.

She says this is ripping MAGA apart.

Do you agree with that?

And to the degree that you do, do you feel badly about that?

Or is it just the cost of forcing the president to reckon with what the people want here?

If there's a cost, it's self-inflicted by the president.

He disavowed this.

and disowned the portion of his base that wanted these Epstein files released.

He said, you're no longer one of my friends if you want to release these files.

And I think that's when he lost a large degree of support.

It's hard to say he's getting bad advice.

Some of the things that he's done that we don't agree with on the Republican side, we've chalked it up to bad advice.

But at some point, he's accountable for his own statements.

Self-inflicted wound to MAGA from the president is what you're saying?

It's clear as day.

That's what happened.

I'm glad now that he's joining the effort.