President Trump said Friday that he had known his wife wanted to speak about Jeffrey Epstein at some point, and that he “thought she had a right to talk about it,” even if he had not known what exactly she planned to say.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Mr. Trump said in a brief telephone interview, referring to the remarks Melania Trump made from the entrance hall of the White House a day earlier.
“I didn’t know what the statement was,” he said, “but I knew she was going to make a statement.”
And she did. And it did not work out how she planned if her plan was to draw a clear line between herself and Epstein and Maxwell. Jude Cramer (FAST COMPANY) notes:
If the first lady’s associations with Epstein had recently reentered the headlines, her speech might have been understandable. But instead, her statement left many scratching their heads and pointing at her and her husband’s proven connections to Epstein, particularly the two men’s friendship in the 1990s.
It also brought renewed attention to the infamous birthday message and lewd drawing allegedly left for Epstein by Donald Trump in 2003, which read, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The president has denied writing the message and sued The Wall Street Journal’s parent company for defamation after the outlet reported on the letter.
DIAZ: But the big takeaway from this is that the first lady also made demands on Congress. She called for a public hearing focused on the survivors of Epstein.
CHANG: Well, what are the survivors saying about that request?
DIAZ: Right now it's sort of a mixed bag because for many of the Epstein's victims, the release of the files has been really difficult to say the least. The DOJ released files that were supposed to have victims' names redacted and didn't in some cases. And there were even naked photos of some of the victims released as part of this massive document dump.
And so some survivors don't have trust in the federal government and are reluctant to participate in a public congressional hearing. One statement put out and signed by more than a dozen survivors claims the first lady was just trying to deflect attention from the DOJ and the administration. By doing that, they said she's putting the burden on Epstein's victims.
But other survivors do feel differently. My colleague Ava Berger, who reported the story with me, spoke with Alicia Arden, who has publicly said she was attacked by Epstein in 1997 when she was a young model. She said she wants to testify in any future hearing.
ALICIA ARDEN: I don't feel like it's a burden on me. It helps me to keep talking about it, and if Melania would like to be with us, I think that would be nice and helpful if we were testifying next to her.
DIAZ: Gloria Allred is an attorney representing multiple Epstein survivors. She told Ava that she also wants to see the first lady testify in front of members of Congress, but Allred said that if a survivor-centered hearing were to take place, the women should do so on a voluntary basis, and no one should be subpoenaed.
CHANG: Well, how much of a commitment is there among lawmakers to hold this hearing?
DIAZ: Right, so there is a bipartisan support for more to be done on the Epstein case and to hold a hearing. Republican Representative Nancy Mace issued a statement supporting the first lady, and so did Democrat Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
CHANG: OK.
DIAZ: He said in a statement, essentially, yeah, let's do it. But that's not really up to him. The committee's Republican chairman, James Comer, has to decide that, and his office did not respond to NPR's questions.
An Epstein victim is calling out first lady Melania Trump, asking her to take the stand and tell her story, and suggesting that both she and her husband should do the same.
Juliette Bryant, a South African woman claiming that she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein when she was 20 years old in 2002, released a video via Instagram following Melania Trump’s April 9th comment, where she separated herself from the deceased financier and convicted sexual offender.
“Hello Melania Trump, my name is Juliet Bryant. I’m an Epstein survivor,” Bryant stated in the video. “You want girls to testify under oath, well, here I am testifying that everything I’ve said is true. Unfortunately, a lot of the girls who testified died. Maybe it’s about time that you and your husband testified too. Thank you.”
That woman is Amanda Ungaro, a former Brazilian model, former ambassador to the United Nations and ex-wife of Paolo Zampolli, Trump’s special envoy and longtime friend. The New York Times reported last month that Zampolli successfully pushed Trump in 2025 to deport Ungaro, then his ex-wife.
Now, Ungaro is vowing revenge.
“Now it’s war,” Ungano told the Spanish news outlet El País in its report published Saturday night.
“We’ll see who wins. I kept quiet for years, and that’s why people are judging me. ‘Why are you speaking out now?’ they ask. ‘Because the guy wouldn’t let me live in peace!’”
Last week, an account on social media apparently belonging to Ungaro issued a series of threats directed at First Lady Melania Trump, vowing to “expose everything I know.” The threats were later suspected to be the potential motivation for the first lady’s surprise statement last week in which she denied having had a relationship with Epstein.
