U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he speaks to members of the media on board Air Force One en route from Scotland, Britain, to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., July 29, 2025. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein

Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" podcast and former White House chief strategist during President Donald Trump's first administration, famously described the MAGA movement's approach as "flood the zone with s---." His point was that by overwhelming opponents, MAGA Republicans can wear them out and keep them off balance.

"Real Time" host Bill Maher had Bannon's "flood the zone" strategy in mind recently when he urged liberals and progressives to be more selective in their criticism of the president and not "lose their s---" every time he says something offensive.

During an appearance on the New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," posted on September 18, historian Nicolle Hemmer noted how effective Trump's "noise machine" can be much of the time.

Whenever Trump wants to create a distraction, Hemmer told host Greg Sargent, his "noise machine" goes to work. But according to Hemmer, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is a rare example of Trump being unsuccessful with his efforts to create a distraction.

This scandal, Hemmer emphasized, isn't going away no matter how badly Trump wants it to.

"You just had the UK ambassador to the U.S. forced to resign because his deep connections with Epstein have just been revealed in a series of e-mails," Hemmer told Sargent. "And so, Donald Trump heading over to the UK for the state visit this week is facing an environment in which a picture of Trump and Epstein is being projected onto Windsor Castle. Like, he can't escape Epstein because so many people want to understand this story and want to understand his role in it."

Hemmer continued, "And it has become one of those stories that — as much as the Trump noise machine, the Trump ability to throw so much stuff out there so you can't focus on any one thing — they've tried that with the Epstein story, and it just doesn't seem to work. It's a story that keeps coming up. And even though they try to whack-a-mole it back down, they're just not successful in getting people’s attention off of the story."

Listen to the full New Republic podcast at this link or read the transcript here.