Los Banos, California – When it comes to President Trump, Angie Zamora and Phaidra Medeiros agree very little.
Zamora, a 36 -year -old army veteran, has nothing good to say.
“The laws. All the rights eliminated from women. Things with ice,” Zamora said, marking his frustrations while stopping outside the post office in the community of the Central Valley of the Bamos. “Why are they going after people working on farms when they are supposed to pursue violent criminals?”
Medeiros, on the contrary, is delighted that Trump replaced Joe Biden. “He was not mentally,” said Medeiros about old former president. “There was something wrong with him from the beginning.”
In spite of all that, the two share a belief: both say that the government should cough until the last information it has in Jeffrey Epstein, its sordid misfort and the powerful associates who moved in their aberrant orbit.
Trump “did his entire campaign to launch Epstein archives,” said Zamora. “And now he is trying to change the subject.
Medeiros, 56, echoed the feeling.
Trump and his republican companions “put themselves in this situation because they continued to speak constantly” about the urgency of the records that are not selected in the case of Epstein's sex trafficking, until they took control of the Department of Justice and the rest of Washington. “Now,” he said, “they are going back.”
Medeiros stopped outside the engineering company, where he works in the Central Valley, in Newman, in a wooded street adorned with stars banners that honor local military and women.
“Obviously there were minors involved” in Epstein's crimes, he said, and if Trump is involved in some way “then he also needs to fall.”
Years after being found dead in a cell in the Manhattan prison, murdered by his own hand, according to the authorities, Epstein seems to have made the almost impossible in this deeply divided nation. He is Democrats, Republicans and independent United around a call to reveal, once and for all, everything that is known 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)
“Now he is dead, but if people were involved, they should be prosecuted,” said Joe Toscano, a 69 -year -old retiree and a non -affiliated voter who last year supported Trump's return to the White House. “Tract it everything. Make it public.”
The 13th District of the Congress of California, where Zamora, Medeiros and Toscano live, is possibly the most fought political land in the United States. Extending through the abdomen of California, from the distant sections of the San Francisco Bay area to the southern end of the San Joaquín Valley, it is an agricultural country: plane, fertile and crossed with channels, railway lines and Trueways with utility names such as road No. 32 and 18½ avenue.
The innumerable small cities are brief interludes in the midst of dairy and poultry farms and the lush carpet of vegetables, fruits and nut trees that extend to the nebula brown horizon. The most populous city, Merced, has less than 100,000 residents. (Modesto, with a population of around 220,000, is divided between districts 5 and 13).
Democratic representative Adam Gray was chosen in November in the career of the nearest camera in the country, surpassing the Republican headline, John Duarte, by 187 votes of almost 211,000 cast. The chirriador was a rematch and almost a repetition. Two years before, Duarte defeated Gray for less than 600 votes of almost 134,000 cast.
It is not surprising that both parties have made the 13th district a main objective in 2026; Handicappers qualify the contest, even when the field is resolved. (Duarte has said he would not run again).
The mid -period elections are very far, so it is impossible to say how Epstein's controversy will develop politically. But, at least, there is a basal transparency expectation, an opinion that was repeatedly expressed in conversations with three dozen voters throughout the district.
A tractor clears the ranks in a garden in Merced.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Zachery Ramos, a 25 -year -old independent, is the founder of the Gustine Travel Library, which promotes learning and literacy throughout the central valley. His showcase, painted with moles and decorated with giant butterflies, feels like a cheerful oasis in the center of four blocks of Gustine, an uproar of green spills of the planting boxes on the front.
Inside, the walls were full of recommendations and newspaper cuts that celebrated the good works of Ramos. As a non -profit organization, he said: “We have to have everything out there. All books. Everything.”
He suggested that Epstein should not be treated differently.
“When it comes to something as serious as that, with what may have taken place or not on her private island, with her girlfriend,” the sentenced sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, “I think everything should be in sight,” said Ramos. “If you are not afraid that your name is in [the files]Especially when it comes to minors being attacked, 100% should be made public. “
Ed, a 42 -year -old Democrat who manages a warehouse operation in Patterson, said Trump launched Government's secret archives about the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., despite the fact that King's family opposed. (Like several of the interviewees, he refused to give his last name, to avoid being bothered by readers who do not like what he had to say).
Why did Ed ask, the Epstein archives should not come to light? “It wasn't just Trump,” he said. “It was many Republicans in Congress who said: 'Hey, we want to get these files.' And I think Kamala [Harris] He had won, they would hit her, demanding that he did it. ”
He hit a fist in his palm, to emphasize the point.
Wood, with a population of approximately 70,000, is one of the largest communities in the 13th district.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Sue, a wooden republican and Trump's no fan, expressed his feelings in staccato explosions of fury.
“Apparently, women years ago said who was doing what, but nobody listens to women,” said the 75 -year -old retiree. “Release everything! Absolutely! You play, pay, friend.”
Even those who ruled out the importance of Epstein and his crimes said the government should not contain anything, even if it is only to erase doubts and leave the problem to rest.
Epstein “has gone and I really don't care if you release the files or not,” said Diane Nunes, a 74 -year -old Republican who keeps the books for her family farm, who is halfway between the bathrooms and Gustine. “But they should probably, because many people are waiting for that.”
Patrick, a construction contractor, was more worked on “Pretty Boy” Gavin Newsom and “Nazi Pelosi” – “Yes, this is what I call it”, than anything that may be on the prowl in Epstein's archives. “When the cat is dead, you don't pick it up and caress it. Right?” He went to the pavement, baking while the temperature in Patterson rose to the 90s.
“It's over,” said the 61 -year -old Republican about Epstein and his villainy. “Move on.”
At least, that would be his preference. But to “shut up everyone, absolutely, yes, they should release them,” said Patrick. “Otherwise, we are all going to speculate forever.”
Or at least until the surveys are closed in November 2026.
