House Speaker Mike Johnson served up a muddled defense of Donald Trump on Sunday as he tried to explain away the president’s appearances in a fresh tranche of Epstein files.
Johnson insisted on NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump has “never had any concern” about making the Epstein materials public—prompting moderator Kristen Welker to note that Trump previously dismissed the files as a “Democratic hoax” in a bid to stop their release.
“Well, he—he—what he said specifically was that the hoax was Democrats trying to turn this into a political issue and use it against him,” Johnson stammered. “That was wrong.”
The appearance comes after a new dump of Epstein files was published Friday, revealing that multiple women made allegations of sexual abuse by Trump to the FBI, which the president denies.
Earlier in the interview, Welker confronted Johnson about whether he has any “outstanding questions” about Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex offender, given the new allegations.
“I do not. I have spoken to the president privately and personally many times, and he has spoken very openly and candidly to the public,” Johnson said. He says the same things privately that he does publicly. He’s never had any concern about that.”
Johnson brushed off the claims by recasting Trump as a whistleblower who broke with Epstein to take him down.
“Remember, President Trump was one of the first who spoke out and he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago, off the property, because he heard of some of the various things he was engaged in,” he said.
Johnson then repeated: “He’s never had any concern about that at all.”
The House speaker has been accused of causing “political pain” by purposefully putting off a vote on the Epstein files for months.
New cover-up concerns emerged this week after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said only half of the files would be released—and that the Department of Justice had already “completed” its review.
