Donald Trump has casually dismissed Jeffrey Epstein’s victims as he spoke out about his wife’s mysterious bid to distance herself from the convicted sex trafficker.
Speaking at the White House before heading to Las Vegas, the president was asked about First Lady Melania Trump’s call last week for Congress to allow women abused by Epstein to testify publicly about it.
But the president immediately pushed back, firstly by calling survivors “victims or whatever” and also by suggesting they didn’t want to give evidence.
“I understand that the women didn’t want to go under oath. That’s what I heard,” he said.
“That the women—the victims or whatever—they refused to go under oath, which was a little surprising.”
The president’s comments come a week after Melania Trump dropped a bombshell statement demanding that “lies” being spread about her in connection with Epstein must end.
Trump and his aides were caught off guard with the first lady’s unsolicited denials last week, with the president later telling the New York Times: “I didn’t know what the statement was, but I knew she was going to make a statement.”
Asked why he thought the first lady made her statement, Trump told reporters on Thursday that it was due to the “fake news” saying she had ties to Epstein when “she had none, and I think that’s been proven.”
“It bothered her that the fake news was being fake news, so she just wanted to clarify,” he said.
But the president and the first lady did, in fact, have ties to Epstein years ago, with numerous photos showing the pair mingling in the same social circles in Manhattan and Palm Beach.
A gushing email exchange between Melania and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was also recently included in a recent dump of Epstein files.
In it, Melania praised a New York magazine article about Epstein and complimented the socialite now serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.
During her carefully crafted six-minute address at the White House last Thursday, the first lady declared she had no knowledge of Epstein’s abuse and had nothing to do with his criminal network.
“The false smears about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop,” she said.
The 55-year-old former model also insisted Epstein did not introduce her to Trump, who she said she met at a New York party in 1998.
The party was held by her then modeling agent, Paolo Zampolli, who recounted the details to the Daily Beast last week and said he would be willing to testify in Congress in support of the first lady.
It was not clear what prompted Melania to make her statement at this time, or if she was pre-empting a potential controversy involving the now deceased sex offender.
But before the bombshell announcement, an account purporting to belong to former Brazilian model Amanda Ungaro began messaging the first lady online, threatening to reveal alleged connections.
Ungaro, who has known the president and the first lady for years, also made headlines earlier this year by accusing Zampolli, the father of her 16-year-old son and now a special envoy for Trump, of using his influence to trigger her arrest by U.S. immigration authorities amid an ongoing custody dispute. He has vehemently denied the claims.
Ungaro was also 17 when she boarded Epstein’s private jet, the so-called “Lolita Express,” on a flight from Paris to New York in June 2002, accompanied by her then-agent, French modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel, who was also a recruiter for Epstein.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the now 41-year-old, but she has yet to comment.
