April 11 2026, 08:15 
Trump administration officials and pundits are scratching their heads and wondering why First Lady Melania Trump decided to make an unexpected speech denying her ties to deceased billionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein yesterday. Epstein’s victims blamed her for trying to shift the responsibility of uncovering his crimes onto them rather than the Department of Justice.
In her speech, she called for an end to “the lies linking me with” Epstein. She said claims that she was friends or had a relationship with him “mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”
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“I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump,” she said, adding that she neither had any knowledge of his crimes nor witnessed any evidence of them. She then called for a congressional hearing with Epstein’s victims, saying, “Then, and only then, will we have the truth.”
MS Now reported that President Donald Trump and White House staffers were unaware that she planned to speak out, and that her speech reignited public interest in Trump’s past friendship with Epstein.
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After the speech, Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich told viewers, “We’ve been trying to understand why she made [the speech] 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, because it did feel like it came out of left field for us.”
The New York Post also wondered, writing, “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.”
An unnamed “close Trump adviser” told Zeteo, “What the f**k is she doing right now?” Two unnamed senior administration officials also told the publication that they were “similarly baffled” and called her statement a “poorly worded denial.”
Several of Epstein’s victims criticized Melania
“Those failures continue to put lives at risk while shielding enablers,” the victims’ statement said, according to The Hill. “Survivors have done their part [by speaking to Congress in the past]. Now it’s time for those in power to do theirs.”
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