President Donald Trump said he encouraged first lady Melania Trump to “go forward” with her lawsuit against Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden.
The first lady has responded to allegations that the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex trafficker, introduced her to her husband in 1998 with demands to stop spreading the misinformation. As her husband, the president supported the move in an interview on Fox News Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Show on Thursday.
“Well, I said, ‘Go forward,’ you know, I’ve done pretty well on these lawsuits lately, and I said, ‘Go forward with it,’” Donald Trump said. “Yeah, I told her, ‘Let’s go ahead and do it.’ I let her use my lawyers. She was very upset about it.”
The president reiterated that they were introduced to each other by a friend at a party in New York City, but it was not Epstein. The first lady detailed the meeting in her 2024 book, Melania, which says an unnamed female friend introduced them.
“Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing,” Donald Trump said. “But they do that to demean, they make up stories.”
Earlier this month, the Daily Beast and Democratic commentator James Carville apologized for repeating the claim that Epstein was tied to Melania meeting her future husband, but Hunter Biden has refused.
“F*** that,” he said when asked if he would like to apologize. “That’s not going to happen.”
According to Nick Clemens, the communications director for the first lady, her attorneys are still pursuing apologies.
“First Lady Melania Trump’s attorneys are actively ensuring immediate retractions and apologies by those who spread malicious, defamatory falsehoods,” Clemens said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “The true account of how the First Lady met President Trump is in her best-selling book, Melania.”
