00:00First Lady Melania Trump delivered a shocking address on Thursday focused on her connection
00:04or a really lack of connection to Jeffrey Epstein. I am not Epstein's victim. Epstein
00:12did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband by chance at the New York City party
00:20in 1998. The first time I crossed paths with Epstein was in the year 2000
00:28at an event Donald and I attended together. At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge
00:38of his criminal undertakings. What's most shocking is how out of left field this came.
00:45The Epstein saga has been well out of the spotlight recently, what with the war in Iran,
00:50a government shutdown which continues, by the way, while Congress is on vacation. Heck,
00:55even a trip to the moon. So I asked the Post's White House reporter, Emily Gooden,
00:59why the First Lady would choose to address the issue, bringing it back into the public consciousness
01:04now. Melania Trump's advisor, Mark Beekman, actually told us that the First Lady did this
01:10because she, quote, wanted to get ahead of some lies and that she wanted the focus to be back on
01:15her work. What's a little unclear is what these lies are. There's a lot of speculation that there
01:20could be some kind of big story about to drop. We know reporters have been digging into her and
01:28Jeffrey Epstein and what happened in the 1990s. In her statement, she admitted that she and Epstein
01:33knew each other. They ran in the same social circles, but she said they weren't friends and
01:38weren't close and reiterated she didn't know anything about his crimes or had never been to
01:42his private island. The remarks were billed by the White House as the First Lady taking a, quote,
01:47more activist role. I asked Emily about the First Lady's seemingly new direction.
01:52Melania Trump has been slowly taking a more high profile role during the second term, her second
01:58term in the White House. Keep in mind that their son, Barron, is much older now. In the first term,
02:04he was only 11 and she was very focused on raising their son. But now he's in college and, you
02:09know,
02:09off being his own self. So she has more time to devote to her legacy. And she is taking on
02:16more
02:16high profile projects. And there are some big high profile things coming down the road.
02:20King Charles of England is coming in at the end of April for a huge state visit. And that's going
02:25to be very high profile, get a lot of publicity. And the king was actually invited to meet with the
02:31victims of Jeffrey Epstein and said he didn't want to because of all the ongoing investigations,
02:36including ones in England. But he said he might meet with him at a later time.
02:40As part of her remarks, Mrs. Trump called on Congress to allow the Epstein victims to testify
02:44about their experience with the predator, give this victims their opportunity to testify under oath
02:51in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony. Each and every woman should have her
03:00day to tell her story in public if she wishes. And then her testimony should be permanently entered
03:09into the congressional record. Then, and only then, we will have the truth.
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