Melania Trump's insider says that the President knew the speech was coming.
Melania Insider Fires Back at Claims Donald Trump Was ‘Kept in the Dark’ Over Epstein Address
Melania Trump’s ex-chief of staff has “called B-” on President Donald Trump’s assertion that he was "caught off guard" by the first lady’s unexpected Jeffrey Epstein statement, as reported by The Daily Beast.
Melania Trump sparked surprise with an unexpected White House address on Thursday, denying any connection to Epstein and his imprisoned associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. According to Reuters, the 79-year-old president told MSNBC following the brief speech that he was unaware of his wife's comment, saying she "didn’t know Epstein" before ending the phone call. An official said that White House employees were caught off guard as well.
However, Trump’s ex-White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who subsequently served as the first lady’s chief of staff, dismissed the claim in a CNN interview. “I'm going to say, I call B- on our president saying he knew nothing about it, because at the very least, I imagine she would have given him a heads-up if she had sent an advisory out yesterday,” Grisham said, pointing to the tip off Melania provided to the media on Wednesday.
When asked if the president could block the statement from going ahead if Melania indicated her desire, she responded, “Absolutely not.”
Reporter describes his call with Donald Trump who said that he wasn't aware about Melania Trump's media address.
Grisham, who resigned from her position as White House press secretary without conducting any press briefings, was questioned by The Lead's Phil Mattingly about whether she found the timing of the first lady's statement surprising.
She mentioned, “No. Melania Trump thinks about everything she does and she thinks about it for a very long time. And she does things very strategically. And she knew full well that walking out there into the White House residence, behind that podium like that, would make absolute waves.”
Grisham also talked about what would have prompted the decision, adding, "And so, she chose this time—again, I don‘t know why. Perhaps, again, it’s a story or she just got an inquiry or she saw something obscure that nobody else did see. And it just made her upset. But she chose this very specifically and she definitely thought on it for a few days.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Melania Trump urged Congress to arrange a public hearing for Jeffrey Epstein's survivors.
“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” Melania, who wed Trump in 2005, started her statement. "I have never been friends with Epstein," she went on, noting that she and the president occasionally ran into him due to shared social networks.
She also urged Congress to arrange a public hearing for Epstein survivors. The first lady dismissed a 2002 email exchanged with Ghislaine Maxwell, referring to it as “casual correspondence.” In the email, deemed “trivial” by her, she expressed positive comments about a photograph of Epstein featured in a New York Magazine article.
That is the same article where her husband praised the disgraced financier, convicted in 2008 of soliciting a minor for pros------.