The “Woke Right” built their campaign against Ukraine on a house of cards that tumbled to the ground this week.

DW PHILLIPS

JUL 10

No murder. No client list. No more information forthcoming.

That is the July 8, 2025, message from Attorney General Pam Bondi concerning the defining conspiracy theory that helped shape the MAGA movement—the alleged murder of Jeffrey Epstein by government assassins to prevent a client list of high-profile globalists and politically elite pedophiles from reaching the light of day.

The White House messaging on Epstein was the equivalent of a political nuclear bomb dropped on propagandists like Tucker Carlson. They staked much on their conspiracy claims about Epstein and his death – their reputations, their financial kingdoms and even their three year campaign to foment contempt for Ukraine.

But while the White House’s statements on Epstein left pro-Trump conspiracy theorists reeling, it also signaled good news for the American public—and for the people of Ukraine.

President Trump and AG Pam Bondi discuss Epstein files on July 8, 2025.

To understand why, let’s first return to the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

How the Woke Right Connected Their Dots

By the end of 2022, Ukraine was losing the information war in America, thanks in large part to the vast influence of a network of podcasters who capitalized on the dissatisfaction of half the American population with their perception of corruption, incompetence, and the woke, tyrannical agenda of the Biden Administration. 

Collectively, these online influencers were described by critics as the “woke right” for employing rhetorical styles and tactics once associated with the political left—especially around themes of victimhood, conspiratorial thinking, and blaming America first —but applied to an isolationist and populist context.

The villains in their stories were a web of elites—criminals controlling the reins of power and manipulating public policy for personal profit and power. Central to their fury was the war in Ukraine. 

When the full scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, the world was in shock. Not the podcasters. Their brand required an explanation rooted in media manipulation and American corruption. Anything but the obvious – that Russia was invading a sovereign nation and committing warcrimes against its people. 

So their story evolved. What began for them as a “phony war staged for television” to profit the Biden crime family, merged into a heroic effort by Moscow to prevent the spread of dangerous bio-labs. Soon after, their claims morphed into the legacy of a CIA-controlled proxy war in a distant corrupt nation of little interest to the United States, whose government was toppled by the CIA in 2014, and is presently run by criminals and populated by backwards people utterly lacking in agency. In the final stage of their narrative, the real aggressor was not Russia, but the CIA and globalists who actually provoked the war for the purpose of degrading Russia, with its commitment to traditional Christian civilization, and with the intent of lining the pockets of the American military-industrial complex.

An early advocate for Russian talking points on Ukraine, Tulsi Gabbard would be appointed by Trump as DNI. 

Leading the charge, each with a variation of these narratives, were figures who would later become central in shaping the MAGA agenda and building populist support for the election of Donald Trump – Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Matt Gaetz, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Green, Tulsi Gabbard, David Smith and many others, each with their own spin 

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Epstein and Ukraine. Ukraine and Epstein. 

What does any of this have to do with the death of Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of his client list? – Answer – Quite a bit.

Epstein and Ukraine were the obsessions of the woke Right. The one was meant to reveal a vast ring of powerful global elites engaged in pedophilia and the agencies which keep them in power. The other was the story of how those same individuals staged the war in Ukraine to line their own pockets and undermine traditional values. They often tied the stories together. 

You are being lied to about everything. Your money is stolen to fund wars [Ukraine] and hide crimes [Epstein]. And the media won’t talk about it.” Tucker Carlson

There were four common denominators in their anti-Ukraine narrative: 

1. The original source for key talking points was the Kremlin
2. Their claims paralleled QAnon conspiracies. 
3. Their case was defended based on conjecture, conspiracy and false accusation. 
4. They insisted there was a direct connection between shadowy globalist elites “pushing a war” in Ukraine for personal profit, and the murder of Jeffrey Epstein by government assassins to protect those same individuals from criminal exposure as pedophiles. 

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Pedophilia as a Central Theme

“…Jewish elites in America are responsible for pedophilia, and Jewish pedophiles in America are fleeing to Israel and receiving protection there… There’s a problem here that we can’t get our pedophiles back from a nation that we’ve given billions of dollars to.”
— The Truth About Zionism, with Candace Owens

One of the most effective ways to teach an audience to hold an ethnicity, nation, or people group in contempt is to accuse them of vile acts of sexual predation.

This may help explain why accusations of pedophilia have become an obsession among some figures on the woke Right.

From the false “Pizzagate” conspiracy—promoted by Alex Jones, alleging that a Washington, D.C. pizzeria was the hub of a Clinton-run child sex trafficking ring—to grotesque accusations that Ukraine is a breeding ground for child sex trafficking to serve globalist elites (echoed by figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene), the theme is consistent. Now, Candace Owens has added to the pattern by accusing Israel of being a safe haven for pedophiles.

At the center of these narratives is the infamous Epstein client list, imagined as a blackmail ledger linking together Jews, Ukrainians, U.S. presidents, and media moguls in a secret global pedophile cabal.

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QAnon Adjacent Conspiracy Theories

Many of these debunked claims have been traced back to Russian state media and the QAnon movement beginning in 2017 and later rebranded. 

QAnon believers claimed that Jeffrey Epstein was a key figure in a global satanic pedophile ring made up of elites—politicians, celebrities, and business leaders—who control governments and media. QAnon followers frequently assert that a secret list of Epstein’s clients—i.e., powerful people who flew on his plane or visited his island—is being covered up by the Deep State to protect elite pedophiles.

They believed:

• Trump would release the list.
• The list would include Clinton, Obama, Hollywood elites, and some Neo Con warmongers and Republican figures.
• The list would vindicate QAnon’s claims of a hidden pedophile ring.

From QAnon Telegram posts (2020–2023):
“When the Epstein list drops, it’s game over for the Deep State.”
“Why do they seal the Epstein flight logs? Because HRC and BO are on it.”

In September 2023, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene—an admitted former QAnon supporter—and podcast commentator Charlie Kirk echoed themes from both QAnon and Kremlin disinformation playbooks when they falsely accused Ukraine of being the global epicenter of human sex trafficking and child organ harvesting. 

These baseless claims were deployed to stir public contempt for Ukraine at a time when U.S. military and humanitarian aid to the country was under debate in Congress. Later, both Greene and Kirk openly advocated for Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, portraying him as the one man who would expose the elusive Epstein client list, confirm that Epstein was murdered by government assassins, and—by doing so—not only vindicate their conspiracy theories, but also shut down American support for Ukraine altogether.

“Ukraine is one of the worst countries on the Earth for child sex trafficking and they’re harvesting children’s organs over there.” now deleted post from Charlie Kirk, September, 2023

The White House Bombshell

For the woke Right, the dream of vindication came crashing down on July 8, 2024. 

For years they argued that releasing to the public the Epstein files was the promised red pill which would open the mind of the public to see the real world—a dystopian America where corrupt elites traffic young women, manipulate economies, undermine traditional values and launch foreign wars for personal profit. His murder would prove that these elites are protected by government assassins. The list would provide the world with the names. 

Not in dispute was the character of Epstein himself, a man widely regarded as human scum. But the alleged assassination of Epstein and the cover up of his client list became a test of orthodoxy for important factions of President Trump’ base. 

In the minds of some, Trump had promised to reveal the hidden information. Bondi had been a cheerleader for exposing this deep state conspiracy. Tens of thousands of collective online hours had been dedicated to the alleged cover-up of Epstein. The narrative became the fundamental reference point — the badly needed smoking gun — to prove that the CIA, Mossad and even MI6 were behind most of the evils of the modern world, from the toppling of foreign regimes, to the assassination of JFK to the events precipitating 9/11. Importantly, it would expose that the same degenerates and assassins connected with Epstein, were behind a globalist agenda for profit pushing American involvement in Ukraine. 

And now this – the comprehensive rejection of the conspiracy thesis by the White House which has left a significant portion of Trump’s base reeling. 

In case there was any question of the seismic nature of the rupture, Bondi’s declaration came with a stunning rebuke from the president himself, over their obsession with Epstein: 

“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years … Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.”
“I mean, I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this … It just seems like a desecration.”

What is the Truth?

Did Epstein have a client list of global leaders engaged in pedophilia and human trafficking? 

Was Epstein killed by the CIA, Mossad, MI6 or another secretive government agency to, as alleged by Carlson, Jones and others?

The answer to these questions have become less important than the implications of the White House’s denial that they are true. 

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Implications

What are the implications for the woke Right of today’s statements by Attorney General Pam Bondi that the much-anticipated Epstein client list does not exist, and that Epstein’s death was conclusively ruled by the White House a suicide, not an assassination?

If the President is telling the truth, then Carlson and his crew have been twisting facts, lying, and falsely accusing others on repeat for six years—a fact he acknowledged in the July 8 episode of his show. It means that millions of listeners have been manipulated through fearmongering, fact-twisting, and the repeated claim that the conclusions of men like Carlson are inescapable. They have wasted the world’s time constructing a unified conspiracy theory that casts an American Deep State as the central villain in global chaos—while pointing to a nothingburger as their smoking gun.

If President Trump, AG Bondi, and others like FBI Director Cash Patel are lying about the death and the list, then the woke Right has a much bigger problem on its hands. It means that something far darker is at play. It means Trump and his staff are complicit. If Trump—their central figure—is shown to be covering for the same elites, it would undermine the moral foundation they claim distinguishes them from the “Uniparty” or Deep State. It also means that these podcasters have built their financial empires and staked their reputations on a man and a movement that is the very enemy they claim to oppose.

Either way, they are discredited. Their power will never be the same again. Their influence over the MAGA base will decline, as followers of Trump will be forced to choose between the President and Tucker Carlson.

It is difficult to see a reasonable third option: either the White House is lying, or it is telling the truth. Either way, it looks bad for the credibility of the woke Right. 

Good News for the Future of Rationality and Ethics

Conspiracy theories are typically built on elements of truth. But they are driven by conjecture and assumption which fester into all encompassing explanations for the woes of the world. The conspiracy becomes the central principle for intelligibility in a confusing world. It becomes the guiding premise for the interpretation of current events. Arguments in defense of the conspiracy need not be footnoted. The evidential claims need not be cross examined. Mere assertion is sufficient. The shadowy, all powerful villains behind the conspiracy are rarely named. 

But in a world of confusion and fear, they sell well. 

In the context of Ukraine, too many American conservatives failed the fundamental test of their own historic orthodoxy when they jettisoned the obvious and the transcendent for the unproven and conspiratorial. The law of war was abandoned in favor of transactional outcomes. Private revelation replaced objective truth. Basic propositions of right versus wrong became muddied in oceans of conjecture, moral equivalency arguments, and unprovable conspiracy theories.

They were unable to agree that:

• Russia invaded the sovereign nation of Ukraine;
• The invasion was a criminal act;
• Russia has committed vast, documented, provable, and undeniable war crimes against the people of Ukraine, which must be opposed;
• It is noble and just for a people to defend their wives and children against rapists and murderers;
• Those who defend their homes against murderers and thieves deserve the moral support of the world—if not more;
• Appeasement never works with tyrants.

Instead of embracing the obvious, they focused on the bizarre and the unknown. They elevated conjecture over the provable. They ignored—and often denied—reality in favor of fantasies necessary to reinforce their core construct: a world governed by pedophiles and a government willing to assassinate those who threaten the hegemony of the elites.

Their obsessions led them to focus on the genitalia of Brigitte Macron, the supposed presence of extraterrestrialspirits in human form guiding American politicians, and a global network of elite pedophiles forcing America into foreign wars like Ukraine..

Millions of Americans followed them down this pathto a lesser or greater extent.

While the debate over Epstein will continue, the files appear to be officially closed for now by the very individuals who once advocated most loudly for their release. 

The woke Right has been defeated in its advance of this pillar of its claims.

Their loss is America’s gain—an open door for healthy change in the way Americans view the Russian invasion and genocidal campaigns against the nation of Ukraine.

There is now a large body of Americans who responded angrily when they discovered they had been manipulated by the mainstream media—only to find a new abusive master in the conspiracies of the woke Right.

More and more may become disenchanted with these modern-day oracles. We can hope that liberty minded Americans will return to a true North Star—one grounded in transcendent values of right versus wrong . One supported by a rational assessment of known facts.

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DW Phillips is a constitutional attorney, a filmmaker, and journalist who directs Ukraine Story, a foundation for documentary reporting.