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Our first lady has established herself as a queen of lying low, so after Melania Trump strutted into a White House summit with a robot a couple weeks ago, I assumed that would be a wrap on her for a while. She got her time sheet stamped for the spring and was free to retreat back to New York or Palm Beach until she had some new NFTs to sell, I assumed. Instead, Melania is back on our screens already, and, what’s more, she has a lot to say about Jeffrey Epstein and how much she doesn’t know him. Confused? You’re not alone. Here’s a rundown of what exactly is going on with the first lady and the notorious convicted sex offender.
What did Melania Trump say about Epstein?
On Thursday, she surprised the press by delivering a six-minute statement at the White House denying that she knew or had any relationship with Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she said. In the statement, she acknowledged that she had met the two, attended events where they were present, and had emailed with Maxwell, but apparently, none of that constitutes a relationship. She added that it was not Epstein who introduced her to President Donald Trump, she was not a victim of theirs, and she had no knowledge of their crimes. She also called on Congress to give a hearing to Epstein’s victims.
Seems kind of out of nowhere. Was anyone even thinking about her and Epstein?
Yes and no. The Epstein scandal has been Topic A in the news at several points since Trump came back into office, and Melania has taken umbrage before at the suggestion that she has anything to do with it. But Epstein talk has definitely been on the back burner in recent weeks, with the war in Iran especially taking precedence.
Was she telling the truth about not knowing Epstein and Maxwell?
After the statement, a well-known photo of Donald Trump, Melania, Epstein, and Maxwell together at an event in the year 2000, standing close and looking awfully cozy, began to circulate online once again. In it, they definitely look like people who know one another, to say the least. The email Melania referred to in the statement, sent by her to Maxwell in 2002, also isn’t hard to find. In it, the first lady complimented Maxwell on a recent profile of Epstein that had appeared in New York magazine and invites her to call her when she is back in New York.
Melania dismissed it as “casual correspondence,” but she also signed it “Love, Melania.” Even if they weren’t the best of friends, it’s hard to believe that they had zero relationship—clearly, there was some connection there, even if it was just at an acquaintance level. The president, meanwhile, had a much deeper relationship with Epstein—a real friendship. In trying to disassociate herself from the scandal, Melania’s lack of acknowledgment of her husband’s ties to Epstein stands out as a confusing, but increasingly familiar, bit of cognitive dissonance.
Did President Trump know she was going to do this?
It’s unclear. According to the New York Times, “a spokesperson for Mrs. Trump said the president knew that the first lady planned to make a statement, but later said it was not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of the topic of her remarks. In a phone call with an MS Now reporter, Mr. Trump said he had no prior knowledge of what she had planned to say.” I certainly don’t have any trouble believing Trump has no idea what’s going on in his wife’s mind or his administration. If it’s not the ballroom redesign, he’s pretty over it.
How has the reaction to the statement been? Do we think this is going to go well for Melania?
It definitely was unexpected—CNN called the statement “stunning,” and so did the New York Post. I think what was so shocking is that Melania rarely speaks, first of all, but also how comparatively little people have been talking about her and the Epstein files—there has been much more focus on her husband. Bringing it up kind of seems like an unforced error and invitation for a Streisand effect.
Jimmy Kimmel suggested that the only explanation for Melania bringing it up is that she hates her husband, but I’m not so sure about that. While it’s certainly possible, I go back to the cognitive dissonance thing. Whether or not she hates him, I know that she cares a lot about what people think about her and has an askew, inflated idea of how much they’re doing it, without her husband’s innate sense for reputation management. This is a woman who thought the movie Melania was a great representation of her image—an astute communication strategist with a coherent viewpoint she is not.
So why did she feel so moved to give this statement, and why now?
Some have suggested that the reason behind the timing must be that something else incriminating for Melania is about to break. Less likely seeming is the notion that the statement is an attempt to distract the press and public from the war—it’s not like getting everybody foaming at the mouth over Epstein again is going to make the administration look good, considering how deeply implicated the president is.
My bet is that Melania has been nursing a weird grudge about all this and simply felt compelled to say something. She’s done it before: Recall that in 2024, we learned that the reason Melania wore her infamous “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket in the first Trump term was to stick it to her stepdaughter, Ivanka, for the sin of pulling focus away from Melania, a grievance that absolutely no one else was aware of or cared about but that apparently drove the first lady insane. I’m telling you, one way that she and Trump are actually well-matched is in how egotistical they are. It is not at all hard to believe that Melania would make a statement designed to salvage her own reputation, even if it simultaneously sells out her husband’s. She has a history of completely ignoring national and international crises because she is too wrapped up in her own petty dramas. Let’s not forget her failure to condemn the Jan. 6 rioters because she was too busy with a rug photo shoot, or her complaints that the media needed to give her a “fucking break” about migrant children separated from their families because she was “working … [her] ass off” on the White House Christmas decorations. She will absolutely be pissed about people bringing up her name in the same sentence as Jeffrey Epstein until the end of time. Unfortunately for her, her decision to speak out about it has all but ensured that no one’s going to forget it anytime soon.
