MS NOW host Jen Psaki couldn’t contain her amused bewilderment on Thursday at first lady Melania Trump’s seemingly sudden decision to deliver remarks about her past ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted former accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I just have to start with something absolutely mind-blowingly bananas that happened today,” Psaki said at the very top of her show.
“I mean, you probably didn’t know that Melania Trump was scheduled to deliver a rare public statement today,” she continued. “But even if you did know, you probably didn’t guess she was going to single-handedly reignite the whole Epstein scandal in the process. And when she reached the podium today in a very self-important way, she cut right to the chase.”
Psaki played a clip of the first lady stating in the Grand Foyer of the White House, “Good afternoon. The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” It was the same room President Donald Trump used last week to deliver remarks on the Iran war.
“I mean, well, good afternoon to you, Melania Trump!” a chuckling Psaki said when the clip ended. “I mean, I was watching that in my office — first of all, it popped up on my screen and I was like, ‘What is happening here?’ — and I was thinking, ’Am I hallucinating? What the hell is going on? Whose idea was this? I had lots of questions.”
The first lady also called for a congressional hearing for survivors, and her remarks reportedly came as a surprise. According to MS NOW, not even the president was aware that his wife would mention Epstein.
“I guess one possibility is that it’s a sign the war really is going that badly,” Psaki said Thursday, adding: “Another is that they are trying to get ahead of a story that a reporter is working on. I guess we’ll learn if that’s the case soon enough. Who knows?”
Melania Trump admitted during her remarks that she emailed Maxwell at least once. The 2002 exchange illustrated a friendly relationship between them, but it was ultimately made public in February.
“The whole thing was even more bizarre given that the first lady seemed to formally stage her remarks to match the visuals of the president’s primetime address to the nation on Iran last week,” said Psaki, a former White House staffer, noting that this isn’t a trivial detail.
“I can tell you, where you give a speech is basically a signal of how important you think it is,” she said. “And let me just tell you, Melania was exuding self-importance this afternoon. So, now that Melania Trump has put Epstein back in the news — congratulations, Melania.”
