The Bays, California – Regarding President Trump, Angie Zamora and Phaidra Medeiros get along very little.
Zamora, a 36 -year -old army veteran, has nothing to say.
“The laws. All the rights withdrawn from women. Tips with ice,” said Zamora, checking her frustrations as she stopped outside the post office in the Los Banos central valley community. “Why do they run through people who work on farms when they are supposed to drive out violent criminals?”
Medeiros, on the other hand, is delighted Trump replaced Joe Biden. “He was not mentally in good shape,” said Medeiros about the former elderly president. “There was something that was not going with him from the start.”
Despite all this, the two share a belief: the two say that the government should spit all the latest information it has about Jeffrey Epstein, its sordid misdeeds and the powerful associates who have moved to his aberrant orbit.
Trump “has done all his campaign on the publication of Epstein files,” said Zamora. “And now he tries to change the subject.” Oh, it’s a “hoax” … “Oh, are you still talking about this flipper?” And yet, there are photos throughout the years of him with this flipper.
Medeiros, 56, echoed the feeling.
Trump and his republican colleagues “put themselves in this situation because they continued to speak constantly” of the urgency to disappoint the files in the case of the sexual trafficking of Epstein – until they take control of the Ministry of Justice and the rest of Washington. “Now,” she said, “they’re in backpedal.”
Medeiros stopped outside the engineering firm where she works in the Central Valley, in Newman, in a street bordered by trees decorated with starry banners in honor of local soldiers and women.
“Obviously, there were minors involved” in Epstein’s crimes, she said, and if Trump is somehow involved “then he must also descend.”
Years after being found dead in a cell in Manhattan prison – killed by his own hand, according to the authorities – Epstein seems to have made the quasi -imposable in this deeply compeated nation. There are United Democrats, Republicans and self -employed around a call to reveal, once and for all, everything we know about his case.
Epstein, seen in court with his lawyers, was found dead in his prison cell while waiting for prosecution for sexual crimes.
(Uma Sanghvi / Palm Beach Post / AP)
“He died now, but if people were involved, they should be prosecuted,” said Joe Toscano, a retired los Banos, 69, and an unconvilled voter who supported Trump’s return to the White House last year. “Bring it all. Make it over.”
The 13th district of the California congress, where Zamora, Medeiros and Toscano live, is undoubtedly the most closely fought in America. Generating through the belly of California, from the borders of the San Francisco Bay region to the southern border of the San Joaquin valley, it is an agricultural country: dish, fertile and haystone with channels, railway lines and Thruways with utility names such as road n ° 32 and Avenue 18½.
The countless small cities are brief interludes in the middle of dairy farms and poultry and lush carpets of vegetables, fruit and nuts that extend to the brown brown horizon. The most populous city, Merced, has less than 100,000 inhabitants. (Modesto, with a population of around 220,000 inhabitants, is divided between the 5th and 13th districts.)
Democratic representative Adam Gray was elected in November in the country closest to the country, beating the Republican president, John Duarte, by 187 votes out of nearly 211,000 actors. The squeaker was a revenge match and almost a replay. Two years earlier, Duarte beat Gray by less than 600 votes out of nearly 134,000 actors.
Unsurprisingly, the two parties made the 13th district a leading target in 2026; The disabled evaluate the competition for a draw, even if the field would sort itself. (Duarte said he would no longer run.)
The mid-term elections are far away, so it is impossible to say how Epstein’s controversy will take place politically. But there is, at least, a reference expectation of transparency, an opinion that has been expressed several times in conversations with three dozen voters in the district.
A tractor erases the rows in a Merced orchard.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Zachery Ramos, a 25 -year -old independent, is the founder of the traveling library Gustine, who promotes learning and literacy throughout the central valley. Its showcase, painted with peas and decorated with giant butterflies, is like a joyful oasis in the city center with four pâtés of Gustine houses, a Green riot stirring of the planters at the front.
Inside, the walls were filled with mental beggars and newspaper cuts celebrating good works by Ramos. As a non -profit organization, he said: “We must have everything. All books. All.”
Epstein, he suggested, should not be treated differently.
“When it comes to something as serious as that, with what may or may not have happened on his private island, with his girlfriend” – the sexual trafficker condemned Ghislaine Maxwell – “I think everything should be open,” said Ramos. “If you are not afraid of your name [the files]Especially when you are dealing with the assault of minors, it should be made 100% public. »»
Ed, a 42 -year -old democrat who manages a warehouse operation in Patterson, noted that Trump had published government files on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., even if King’s family opposed. (Like many of the people interviewed, he refused to give his last name, to avoid being harassed by readers who do not like what he had to say.)
Why, Was not EDSTEIN files wondered ED files? “It wasn’t just Trump,” he said. “It is a lot of republicans in the congress who said:” Hey, we want to broadcast these files. “And I think if Kamala [Harris] had won, they would beat her, demanding that she do it. »»
He struck a fist in his palm, to emphasize the point.
Madera, with a population of around 70,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest communities in the 13th district.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Sue, a Madera Republican and no fan of Trump, expressed her feelings in the gusts of Fury Staccato.
“Apparently, women said years ago that did what, but no one listens to women,” said the 75 -year -old retiree. “Release everything! Absolutely! You play, you pay, my friend.”
Even those who rejected the importance of Epstein and its crimes said that the government should not remember anything – if only to erase doubts and pose the problem to rest.
Epstein “left and I don’t really care to release the files or not,” said Diane Nunes, a 74-year-old republican who keeps books for her family farm, which is halfway between Los Banos and Gustine. “But they should probably because many people are waiting for this.”
Patrick, an entrepreneur under construction, was more elaborated about “Pretty Boy” Gavin Newsom and “Nazi Pelosi” – “Yes, that’s what I call him” – that everything could be hidden in Epstein files. “When the cat is dead, you don’t pick it up and don’t caress it. No?” He signaled to the road, cooking while the Patterson temperature rose in the 90s bass.
“It’s over,” said the 61 -year -old Republican about Epstein and his wickedness. “Pass.”
At least that would be his preference. But to “close everyone, absolutely, yes, they should release them,” said Patrick. “Otherwise, we will all speculate forever.”
Or at least until the ballot boxes are closed in November 2026.