President Donald Trump admitted Friday, April 10, 2026, that First Lady Melania Trump caught him off guard when she delivered a surprise statement about Jeffrey Epstein the previous day, revealing a rare public disconnect between the president and his wife on a politically explosive issue.
He said that he had known his wife wanted to say something to the press about Jeffrey Epstein at some point, and that he “thought she had a right to talk about it,” but he did not know what she was going to say.
“I didn’t know what the statement was,” he said, “but I knew she was going to make a statement.”
The revelation came as reporters scrambled to understand why the first lady chose on Thursday, April 9, 2026, to address allegations about her connection to the late sex offender, a topic the White House had been trying to move past as the Iran war news dominates Washington.
Trump told an MS NOW correspondent by phone shortly after his wife’s White House statement that he knew nothing about her plans beforehand. “She didn’t know him,” the president said of Epstein before abruptly ending the call.
The president said his wife had been distressed for a long time by news coverage and rumors linking her to Epstein. What particularly troubled her, Trump added, was a theory suggesting that Epstein was the one who introduced her to her future husband. In her Thursday remarks, Melania described meeting Trump by chance at a New York City party in 1998. She said she did not meet Epstein until two years later.
The timing and circumstances of the first lady’s statement baffled even seasoned White House correspondents. Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said her team spent hours trying to uncover what prompted the unexpected remarks.
“We’re still trying to figure out why she made the statement today,” Heinrich told Fox viewers. “I’ve called every contact in my phone including the president, and not gotten any answers.”
Speaking from the White House Grand Foyer on Thursday, Melania Trump delivered a forceful five-minute statement denying any meaningful relationship with Epstein or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. She dismissed allegations linking her to the convicted sex offender as baseless lies and mean-spirited attempts to damage her reputation.
“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” the first lady said, reading from prepared remarks. She acknowledged that she and her husband attended some of the same parties as Epstein in New York and Florida, but characterized any interactions as passing encounters in overlapping social circles.
The first lady also addressed an October 2002 email she sent to Maxwell that was released in January by the Justice Department as part of millions of pages of Epstein documents. The email, signed “Love, Melania,” began with “Dear G!” and complimented a New York Magazine profile of Epstein, calling it a “Nice story.” Maxwell’s reply began with the term of endearment “Sweet pea.”
Melania Trump dismissed the exchange as trivial correspondence, saying her polite reply to Maxwell’s email amounted to nothing more than a trifle.
That same profile quoted President Trump calling Epstein a “terrific guy” and noting that the financier “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Marc Beckman, a senior adviser to the first lady, offered only vague explanations for the timing. He told the New York Post that she “spoke out now because enough is enough” and that it was time for the public and media to focus on her achievements rather than what he called lies.
The statement came after the Justice Department released millions of pages of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation enacted following months of public and political pressure. The first lady has also been engaged in a legal dispute with journalist Michael Wolff over his reporting about her alleged connections to Epstein.
In her statement, Melania Trump called on Congress to hold public hearings where survivors of Epstein’s crimes could testify and share their stories. She said each woman should have her day to speak publicly if she wishes, adding that only then would the truth emerge.
Democrats quickly seized on the proposal. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, posted on social media, calling on committee chairman James Comer to schedule a public hearing immediately.
The New York Post, typically aligned with the Trump administration, expressed confusion about why the first lady chose to speak out when the White House was trying to move past the Epstein controversy.
Adding to the confusion, an unnamed spokesperson for the first lady initially told the New York Times that President Trump did know his wife planned to make a statement. The spokesperson later walked back that claim, saying it was unclear whether the president knew what the statement would be about.
Photographs from a 2000 party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beach club show Melania Trump with Epstein on multiple occasions, contradicting claims of only minimal contact. The first lady, however, has never been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein or Maxwell.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and onetime fierce Trump supporter who resigned from Congress in January after a public falling out with the president over the Epstein files, posted on X, “I am grateful to the First Lady for her brave statement today about Epstein and his victims.”
