As the U.S. House of Representatives prepared to vote to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in November 2025, a rumor spread online that a Montana town that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump was holding a “pedophile bonfire” to burn Trump flags and hats that said “Make America Great Again,” the slogan that started the MAGA movement.
The claim circulated after the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a batch of more than 20,000 documents related to the Epstein case, including many emails to and from Epstein that mentioned Trump.
For example, one Facebook page posted the rumor on Nov. 14 (archived), generating more than 23,000 shares as of this writing. The post read:
BREAKING: A Montana town that voted 89% for Donald Trump a year ago is holding a “Pedohile Bonfire” event in their public park tonight for anyone who wants to come burn their Trump flags and MAGA hats.
Variations of the rumor spread elsewhere on Facebook (including in Spanish) and on X and Instagram. None of the examples listed specified which town the bonfire was supposed to take place in.
Some people seemed to believe the event was real, and several Snopes readers emailed us to ask whether it was true.
Online searches uncovered no evidence that such an event was set to take place, or had taken place, in Montana in November 2025.
Rather, the rumor about the MAGA merch bonfire originated with The Halfway Post (archived, archived) — a website and series of social media accounts describing its output as satirical. Its About page read (archived):
I’m Dash MacIntyre, a comedian, satirist, and poet from St. Louis. I founded The Halfway Post to make fun of Donald Trump. I don’t report the facts, I improve them because comedy is cathartic in fascist eras.
Its article about the fabricated bonfire in a Montana town also included clear satire labels.
The Halfway Post has a history of writing and fabricating satirical stories. In this case, it appeared to draw inspiration from some incidents that reportedly occurred in July 2025, during which Trump supporters were said to have burned MAGA merch to express their anger over the way Trump was handling the issue of the Epstein files.
Meanwhile, other rumors circulated that people were burning their MAGA hats after the November 2025 Epstein documents release. Snopes had not verified whether these claims were true or where they allegedly occurred.
Snopes has previously addressed similar satirical claims from The Halfway Post, including the assertion that Republican legislators had tapes of Trump begging, bribing, threatening and crying over them voting to release the Epstein files.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
