I don't know what your stance used to be, but all these MAGA people who used to be fully on release the Epstein files train to now say that it must be a nothingburger are full on huffing copium.
my stance regarding the list is and was a) nothing ever happens and b) people aren't dumb.
seriously, ask yourself, you have the rich and powerful that manage to stay in the top 1% for decades, not doing everything in their power to get rid of said blackmail material once epstein didn't kill himself? it's easy to claim "your enemy" is a complete retard, but that's premium cope. the next premium cope is thinking that after his mansion got raided in 2019 the same FBI and deepstate that was fucking with trump would suddenly do it's upmost due diligence and handle everything above board, just this once.
if there was incriminating shit, it was already gone in 2019, and even if not, the last most retarded cope is the democracts, in power for four fucking years, would just sit on it and leave it in an evidence locker with a nice note for trump. especially after, as you said, plenty of people were talking about "the list"
while the dems were still in charge.
only a complete smoothbrain would assume after trump talking about it on rogan anyone involved would just go "omg what should we do?! we'll just do nothing, that'll show them!!!". sure, you can always excuse it "but he was supposed to bite the bullet and/or never win", but again people aren't dumb. if they have the means to get rid of it (or use it themselves), why not do so immediately? otherwise it meant getting exposed or more blackmail.
this also means anyone from camp trump didn't have access yet so didn't even know what's in it, let alone what the chain of custody looks like. the list could be the worst shit imaginable, but if you don't know it's legit it would be retarded to not only go public with them but trying to build a case with it. why they don't say it, who knows. one could be trump wanting to drain the swamp, not implode the whole institution where either the FBI were complete inbred retards or purposefully fucked with it so can't be trusted anymore (just because we don't doesn't mean the average normie does, for most of them the system "still works").
why everyone is retarded now I can't say. one is the usual media hysteria, but fueling the flames doesn't make much sense. there's also the aspect that even with allegedly 1000 victims, if none of those want to come forth (and who would now with tensions high) or can be found, what else can be done?
for me it makes much more sense the list was either much more of a nothingburger than anyone expected or so spicy they couldn't make it public anyway. they released what they could and that was it, however that didn't satisfy most people considering how mythologized "the epstein list" and everything around it is. trump going full boomer after getting hassled over and over about something he already moved on from and/or others should be handling shouldn't be surprising. him calling it a hoax makes much more sense from the angle "some retards keep fueling the flames, must be the dems".
again, this is not a defense, but the most sensible assumption. otoh it's much easier to go OMG TRUMP IS IN IT HE JUST FORGOT ABOUT IT AND THE DEMS DIDN'T USED IT EVER BECAUSE REASONS, THAT'S WHY!!!!
What's that grey shirt supposed to represent?
abe lincoln's armrest