{"id":593968,"date":"2026-04-10T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/593968\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:00:08","slug":"trump-news-at-a-glance-melania-trumps-weird-disavowal-of-epstein-is-getting-weirder-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/593968\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump news at a glance: Melania Trump\u2019s weird disavowal of Epstein is getting weirder | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melania Trump stood at a podium in the same room Donald Trump<\/a> used to address the nation on the war in Iran last week to make an announcement: she \u201cnever had a relationship\u201d with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was unclear which specific accusations spurred Trump to respond publicly. The first lady went on to say that she and the president were invited to the same parties as Epstein \u201cfrom time to time\u201d as \u201coverlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach\u201d.<\/p>\n

That claim is undermined by the fact that the most well-known images of the two couples together were taken at Trump\u2019s own club, Mar-a-Lago, on 12 February 2000.<\/p>\n

Adding to the swirl of confusion over the reasoning behind the first lady\u2019s statement <\/a>are reports the president has been telling reporters he had no idea his wife would give them. A spokesperson for the first lady initially told the New York Times<\/a> the president knew his wife planned to make a statement. That report was later updated to note that the spokesperson \u201clater said it was not clear if Mr. Trump was aware of the topic of her remarks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Melania Trump says she did not have relationship with Jeffrey Epstein<\/p>\n

US congressional leaders seized on the first lady\u2019s call for Congress to take sworn testimony in a public hearing from Epstein victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree with First Lady Melania Trump\u2019s call for a public hearing with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>,\u201d said Robert Garcia of California, ranking member of the House committee on oversight. \u201cWe encourage Chairman Comer to respond to the first lady\u2019s request and schedule a public hearing immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full story<\/a><\/p>\n

Exclusive: US defense official overseeing AI reaped millions selling xAI stock after Pentagon entered agreement with company<\/p>\n

A high-profile US Department of Defense official who oversees the agency\u2019s artificial intelligence<\/a> efforts made a profit of up to $24m selling a private investment he held in Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s AI company earlier this year, according to government ethics records released this month. The value of his stake totaled a maximum of a million dollars when he joined the department.<\/p>\n

Read the full story<\/a><\/p>\n

George Clooney calls Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018a whole civilization will die tonight\u2019 threat to Iran a war crime<\/p>\n

The long-running war of words between George Clooney<\/a> and the White House has ignited again after the Oscar-winning actor criticized Trump\u2019s threat to Iran that \u201ca whole civilization will die tonight\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, in a speech to 3,000 high school students in Cuneo, Italy, Clooney said the US president had committed a war crime with his threat.<\/p>\n

Read the full story<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans block Democrats\u2019 push to curb Trump\u2019s war powers over Iran<\/p>\n

An attempt by House Democrats to pass a long-shot resolution on Thursday curtailing Trump\u2019s war powers over Iran failed after the Republican pro forma speaker, Chris Smith, did not recognize lawmakers from the opposite party on the floor.<\/p>\n

Read the full story<\/a><\/p>\n

What else happened today:<\/p>\n

Catching up? Here\u2019s what happened Thursday 9 April<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melania Trump stood at a podium in the same room Donald Trump used to address the nation on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-593968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}