What did the president not know (about his wife’s statement on Epstein), and when did he not know it?
While it remains unclear why Melania Trump chose to read a brief statement on Thursday distancing herself from Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender her husband socialized with for nearly two decades, reporters have sent much of the day trying to find out if the president knew that his wife was planning to draw attention back to a subject he has called for the public to move on from.
Shortly after the first lady delivered her statement, an MSNOW host reported that she had spoken by phone to Donald Trump, who said he did not “know anything about” the first lady’s statement before she appeared on camera. “She didn’t know him,” the president added before hanging up, apparently referring to Epstein.
The first lady was photographed with Epstein multiple times at a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beach club in 2000. She acknowledged on Thursday that she had also written a friendly email to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in October 2002, signed “Love, Melania”. The first lady did not mention that her email included praise for a flattering profile of Epstein in New York magazine that came out that week, which she called a “Nice story”. That 2002 profile featured the following glowing quote from Donald Trump praising his friend and making reference to his attraction to young women:
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
A spokesperson for the first lady initially told the New York Times the president knew that his wife planned to make a statement. That report was later updated to note that the spokesperson “later said it was not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of the topic of her remarks.”
Key events
Closing summary
This concludes our coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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The first lady, Melania Trump, read reporters an extraordinary statement denying that she ever had “a relationship” with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender, or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
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“Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” the first lady said on Thursday. However, that contention is undermined by the fact that the most well-known images of the two couples together were taken at Trump’s own club, Mar-a-Lago, on 12 February 2000.
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While the first lady did mention in the statement she read aloud an email she sent to Maxwell, apparently in reference to a 2002 note signed, “Love, Melania”, that friendly correspondence was released by the justice department in January, offering no hint as to why she chose to address it now.
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Even normally well-sourced correspondents for rightwing outlets were at a loss to explain why the first lady felt the need to issue a statement denying that she had any relationship with Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with her husband for nearly two decades, or his accomplice Maxwell.
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The normally ever-present Donald Trump was out of sight all day, but the president spent hours on a social-media posting spree, complaining about perceived slights from Iran, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and four former supporters in the rightwing media who have criticized his war on Iran.
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Besieged by questions about the deadly chaos he unleashed by attacking Iran and his wife’s statement on Epstein, Trump tried to shift the national conversation back to his immigration crackdown by posting graphic video of a woman in Florida being murdered last week by a man he called an illegal immigrant from Haiti.
The far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones fired back at Donald Trump for disowning him, writing on social media: “I have made it very clear that I no longer support Trump and I’m very thankful to him for making it clear that I have nothing to do with him. The new Trump is a rotting husk of the old Trump.”
The Texas radio host added a suggestion that Trump had fallen under the sway of another far-right host: Mark Levin of Fox News. Levin, who is an ardent supporter of Israel, has been engaged in a nasty feud with the former Fox host Megyn Kelly, accusing her Trump over the US-Israeli attack on Iran of being motivated by anti-semitism.
In a video response to Trump’s earlier post attacking Jones, Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, Jones began by playing a clip of Trump saying to Jones in 2015: “I just want to finish by saying your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down. You will be very, very impressed I hope”.
“President Trump, you promised to never let me down, but now you’ve let yourself and America down,” Jones said in the latest sign of the deep fissure in the far-right movement led by Trump over his decision to attack Iran at the urging of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump tries to move national conversation away from Iran and Epstein to immigration by posting graphic video of murder
Besieged by questions about the deadly chaos he unleashed by attacking Iran and his wife’s statement on Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he socialized with for nearly two decades, Donald Trump tried to shift the national conversation back to his immigration crackdown by posting graphic, distressing video of a woman in Florida being murdered last week by a man he called an illegal immigrant from Haiti.
The video, taken by a surveillance camera outside a Fort Myers gas station, showed a man identified by authorities as a Haitian immigrant using a hammer to bludgeon the female clerk to death.
The video was originally surfaced by the Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin on Tuesday, when Trump was threatening to commit a war crime by bombing Iran’s civilian infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security told Fox that the suspected attacker in custody was “released” in 2022 by the Biden administration and given Temporary Protected Status.
It is unclear whether that information is accurate, but Trump has been trying to foment hatred of Haitians given temporary shelter in the US since his 2024 campaign, when he infamously made the false accusation that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were “eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there”.
The baseless conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants eating pets was first popularized that year by JD Vance, the Ohio senator who became Trump’s running mate. At the same time, Vance argued that Haitians who had a legal right to live and work in the United States with Temporary Protected Status should be considered “illegal” because the law had been abused.
The administration’s efforts to remove temporary protected status from Haitians and other immigrants seeking safety has been blocked by multiple courts.
The distressing video of the murder was first posted on social media earlier on Thursday by DHS, which slightly blurred the violent attack. When Trump shared the video, with a long caption railing against what the president wrongly called “Temporary Protective Status,” the video of the woman’s last moments was not blurred.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, commented that DHS And then Trump shared the video “for exactly as vile a reason as you can imagine; basically Breitbart’s old ‘black crime’ vertical as official government policy. There hasn’t been an administration this openly racist since Wilson invited the KKK to the White House.”
Reichlin-Melnick was referring to a section of the far-right website Breitbart which sowed racist hatred by focusing on violent crime committed by Black Americans and immigrants.
In 2019, the journalist Michael Edison Hayden obtained more than 900 emails sent to Breitbart editors in 2015 and 2016 by Stephen Miller, who is now Trump’s main domestic policy adviser, urging them to focus on violent crimes committed by people of color and immigrants.
What did the president not know (about his wife’s statement on Epstein), and when did he not know it?
While it remains unclear why Melania Trump chose to read a brief statement on Thursday distancing herself from Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender her husband socialized with for nearly two decades, reporters have sent much of the day trying to find out if the president knew that his wife was planning to draw attention back to a subject he has called for the public to move on from.
Shortly after the first lady delivered her statement, an MSNOW host reported that she had spoken by phone to Donald Trump, who said he did not “know anything about” the first lady’s statement before she appeared on camera. “She didn’t know him,” the president added before hanging up, apparently referring to Epstein.
The first lady was photographed with Epstein multiple times at a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beach club in 2000. She acknowledged on Thursday that she had also written a friendly email to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in October 2002, signed “Love, Melania”. The first lady did not mention that her email included praise for a flattering profile of Epstein in New York magazine that came out that week, which she called a “Nice story”. That 2002 profile featured the following glowing quote from Donald Trump praising his friend and making reference to his attraction to young women:
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
A spokesperson for the first lady initially told the New York Times the president knew that his wife planned to make a statement. That report was later updated to note that the spokesperson “later said it was not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of the topic of her remarks.”
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, released a statement in support of Melania Trump’s call for survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein to be given an opportunity to testify in public to Congress.
“I’ve been calling for a public hearing with survivors for nearly a year. They deserve answers, accountability, and healing,” Pressley said. “I hope Melania talks to Chairman Comer and Trump to make this happen. Survivors have waited long enough.”
Pressley added that, as a survivor of sexual abuse herself, she has led Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in calling for “a full, public Oversight hearing to prioritize the individuals who survived the horrific abuse associated with by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their associates, and whose firsthand accounts may not be sufficiently represented in the Department of Justice’s records.”
Senate banking committee delays confirmation hearing for new Fed chair – report
The US Senate Banking Committee is no longer planning to hold a confirmation hearing next week for Kevin Warsh, Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Federal Reserve, Punchbowl News reports.
The committee’s calendar remains open, but the earliest date for a hearing now appears to be 21 April.
The same outlet had reported last month that the hearing would take place next week, if the nominee’s paperwork was submitted in time.
The delay means that a full Senate confirmation might not be complete before the current Fed chair, Jerome Powell, ends his term on 15 May.
Powell, who has not yet announced whether he will exercise the option to stay on the central bank’s board after his term as chair ends, could continue to lead the board until his replacement is confirmed.
Trump attacks Wall Street Journal, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones in posting spree aimed at Iran war critics
The normally ever-present Donald Trump has been out of sight on Thursday, but the president spent much of the past two hours on a social-media posting spree, complaining about perceived slights from Iran, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and four former supporters in the rightwing media who have criticized his war on Iran.
“There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” Trump warned in one post.
“Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!” he wrote in another.
The gravity of those brief comments, however, was undermined by the fact that they were dwarfed by a series of far longer posts in which Trump poured quite a bit more energy into attacking the Wall Street Journal for an editorial headlined, “Trump Declares Premature Victory in Iran”, boasting about his plan to remake “the once beautiful Reflecting Pool” in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and claiming, falsely, that “Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years”.
In fact, the wartime president devoted more than 450 words to deriding those far-right media figures who had previously supported him as “NUT JOBS”, who host “Third Rate Podcasts”, and “have one thing in common, Low IQs. They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!”
The president suggested that Carlson, a longtime supporter turned critic over Trump’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran, was “broken” by being fired from Fox News in 2023 and “should see a good psychiatrist”.
However, Trump appeared on stage with Carlson, the former Fox News host, just days before the 2024 election, and the rightwing media star’s son, Buckley Carlson, is a deputy press secretary for JD Vance, Trump’s vice-president.
He dismissed Kelly, another supporter turned critic, as the person who once asked him, in a 2015 Fox Republican debate, about how he would answer the charge “that you are part of the war on women” since he had “called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”
Trump called Owens, “who accuses the Highly Respected First Lady of France of being a man, when she is not” both “crazy” and less beautiful than Brigitte Macron.
Finally Trump also attacked Jones, who called for Trump to be forced from office this week over Iran, as discredited by “his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously claiming it was a hoax.”
What Trump did not mention in his denunciation of Jones for spreading the conspiracy theory that the killing of 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 was a hoax staged by the government, is that he had completely ignored that when he sat for a 30-minute interview with the Texas radio host in 2015.
At the end of that 2015 interview, Trump even told Jones: “I just want to finish by saying your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down. You will be very, very impressed I hope and I think we’ll be speaking a lot.”
In the same post, Trump complained about CNN and the New York Times reporting on the dissent over his war on Iran from these former supporters and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also called this week for Trump to be removed from office.
“They’re not ‘MAGA,’ they’re losers, just trying to latch on to MAGA. As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs,” Trump added.
David Smith
When Donald Trump launched a seemingly random war against Iran, there was a whiff of suspicion of a Wag the Dog ploy to divert attention from how badly the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was going.
So when Trump’s wife Melania made a mysterious appearance at the White House on Thursday to put Epstein front and centre again, was it an elaborate ruse to divert attention from how badly the Iran war is going?
Wearing a grey pantsuit, the first lady emerged from the Blue Room and walked to a lectern flanked by US flags in the grand foyer, surrounded by chandeliers, marble pillars and shiny chequered floor.
As cameras clicked away, Melania, full of cold fury, said in her now familiar Slovenian accent: “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.”
To which America responded: “What lies? Maybe we read something somewhere a few months ago but we have more pressing concerns right now.”
But Melania had come to say her piece. “The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect. I do not object to their ignorance, but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”
There was then a small, nervy linguistic slip: “I never been friends with Epstein.”
Epstein survivors Maria and Annie Farmer call for justice after Melania Trump statement
At the end of the written statement on Jeffrey Epstein that Melania Trump read aloud to reporters on Thursday, the first lady urged Congress to invite the victims of the late child sex offender’s victims to testify at a public hearing.
“I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors,” the first lady said, after claiming to have had only a passing relationship with Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
“Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress, with the power of sworn testimony,” she continued. “Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record.”
Epstein survivors Maria and Annie Farmer responded with the following statement:
“We can’t speak for other survivors, but what we want is accountability, transparency, and justice. The federal government has long mismanaged the Epstein investigation by repeatedly ignoring survivors, violating their privacy, and refusing to release the remaining records held by the Department of Justice — including my complete FBI records from 1996. If the federal government is truly committed to supporting survivors, it would ask us what we want and should follow the facts wherever they may lead.”
Even Fox News is baffled by Melania Trump’s statement on Epstein
Even normally well-sourced correspondents for rightwing outlets were at a loss to explain why Melania Trump felt the need to issue a statement on Thursday denying that she had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with her husband for nearly two decades, or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said that she and her team were baffled by the statement.
“We’ve been trying to understand why she made it today, if there was something that she is reacting to that might already be in the news that has upset her, or if there’s a story that’s yet to come out, that’s about to drop that she wanted to get ahead of,” Heinrich told Fox viewers. “Because it did feel like it came out of left field for us.”
“We’re still trying to figure out why she made this statement today,” she added. “I’ve called every contact in my phone, including the president, and not gotten any answers.”
The New York Post, which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch and often acts like an arm of the Trump White House communications team, was also puzzled. “It’s unclear why the first lady chose to hold the press event at a time when the White House is trying to move on from the Epstein saga that has been a drag on her husband’s second term,” the New York tabloid reported.
Marc Beckman, a senior adviser to the first lady, told the Post only that she “spoke out now because enough is enough”.
“The lies must stop,” Beckman added in his cryptic statement. “It is time for the public and media to focus on her incredible achievements as First Lady, the lives she has positively impacted, and her commitment to our nation.”
While the first lady did mention in the statement she read aloud an email she sent to Maxwell, apparently in reference to a 2002 note signed, “Love, Melania”, that friendly correspondence was released by the justice department in January, offering no hint as to why she chose to address it now.
Trump suggested her own email was “trival,” apparently misreading the word “trivial” from her written statement, but the justice department also released Maxwell’s reply, which began with the term of endearment “Sweet pea”, which seems to undermine the first lady’s claim that the two were never friends.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Melania Trump, the first lady, told reporters on Thursday that she “never had a relationship” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. It was unclear which specific accusations spurred the first lady to respond publicly. “I never been friends with Epstein,” Trump said in her statement. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.” – More here.
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The push from House Democrats to pass a war powers resolution by unanimous consent failed today, after the pro forma speaker, Republican Chris Smith, did not recognize Democrats. It was always a tall order, given that pushback from even a single member would require Democrats to pursue a formal vote on the resolution.
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While it’s largely a symbolic move, Democrats in both chambers have vowed to hold votes again when Congress returns from recess next week. On the steps of the US Capitol, lower chamber Democrats appeared confident that when Congress returns from recess next week, they will have at least a couple of House GOP members who are willing to buck their party and pass the resolution.
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Donald Trump told NBC News that he is “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by his vice-president JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the war this weekend. Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” the president said, in line with his administration’s narrative that there’s a disconnect between what Tehran says publicly and privately.
Melania Trump’s claim she and her husband were just ‘invited to the same parties’ as Epstein and Maxwell undermined by photos of them together at Mar-a-Lago
Robert Mackey
In her extraordinary statement denying that she ever had “a relationship” with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender, or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, Melania Trump cast the existence of photographs of her and her husband, Donald Trump, with the notorious couple as an accidental result of having been invited to the same parties.
“I never been friends with Epstein,” the Slovenian-born first lady said, reading aloud from a written statement. “Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” she added.
However, that contention is undermined by the fact that the most well-known images of the two couples together were taken at Trump’s own club, Mar-a-Lago, on 12 February 2000.
Another photograph taken that same night shows that another Epstein friend, then Prince Andrew, was invited to the same party, and shared a laugh with the future first lady and Epstein.
“The first time I crossed paths with Epstein,” Melania Trump said in her statement on Thursday, “was in the year 2000 at an event Donald and I attended together.”
“Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating [sic] on social media for years now,” the first lady said, apparently misreading the word “circulating” from the written statement. “Be cautious about what you believe. These images and stories are completely false,” she added.
The Mar-a-Lago event was held just two days before Donald Trump appeared on the Today Show to announce that he was abandoning his bid to be the Reform Party’s presidential candidate in the 2000 election.
Melania Trump continued to deny any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse in her public statement.
“My name has never appeared in court documents, the positions, victim statements or FBI in interviews surrounding the Epstein matter,” she said. “I was never involved in any capacity. I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane and never visited his private island.”
The first lady went on to say that the “false smears” about her involvement with Epstein are coming from “mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals”. She warned that those “looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically” will be met with legal action.
“My attorneys and I have fought these unfound and baseless lies with success, and will continue to maintain my sound reputation without hesitation,” Trump said. She also implored Congress to hold public hearing, to give Epstein’s survivors the opportunity to testify under oath with the power of sworn testimony if they so choose.
Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight comittee, welcomed the first lady’s plea to lawmakers.
The panel continues to investigate the federal government’s handling of the investigation into Epstein’s crimes. “We encourage Chairman [James] Comer to respond to the first lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately,” Garcia said in a post on X.
In her statement, the first lady elaborated that she only met Epstein for the first time in 2000, at a party she attended with her husband. At the time she was known as Melania Knauss. “I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings,” she said. “Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating on social media for years now. Be cautious about what you believe.”
As my colleague Robert Mackey reported earlier this year, a trove of files released by the justice department from the federal investigation into Epstein includes a friendly email that was apparently sent to Maxwell in late October 2002, signed “Love, Melania”.
Although the email addresses of both the sender and the recipient are redacted, a second copy of the same email text also appears in another document released on Friday, which includes a reply from “G. Max”.
The first email, sent on the evening of 23 October 2002, with the subject line “HI!” begins “Dear G!”. The sender says there is a “nice story about JE in NY mag” before asking the recipient about their travels and to call them when they’re back in New York.
In their reply, “G. Max” wrote that while they are already on their way back to the city they will not have time to see the sender, but they would “try and call”.
The email exchange was sent the week that New York magazine published a flattering profile of Jeffrey Epstein that included a photograph of Maxwell with Epstein. While the article was in the 28 October 2002 edition, new issues of the magazine are published one week prior to the cover date.
While the redactions in the documents mean that there is no proof that the exchange was with the future first lady, in her statement today, Trump appeared to reference these emails, although it is unclear if she was definitely referring to this batch of communication.
“My email reply to Maxwell cannot be characterized as anything more than casual correspondence,” the first lady said. “My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.”
Maxwell had socialized with the future Melania Trump in Palm Beach prior to the email exchange. Just over two weeks later, on 11 November 2002, they were photographed together in New York, along with Donald Trump and Naomi Campbell, at a Dolce & Gabbana event.
Just over two months later, in January 2003, Maxwell would present Epstein with a bound volume of 50th birthday greetings from friends and associates, including a crude drawing and enigmatic message in the name of Donald Trump.
Melania Trump denies any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
First Lady Melania Trump told reporters on Thursday that she “never had a relationship” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. In a televised statement, it was unclear which specific accusations the first lady was responding to exactly.
“I [have] never been friends with Epstein,” she said in her public rebuke. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.”
The first lady went on to say that she and the president were invited to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time” as “overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach”.
