President Donald Trump delivered combative remarks to reporters on the White House lawn before departing for a trip to Scotland on Friday, seeking to steer the press away from examining his relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The president’s remarks followed a Wall Street Journal report alleging Trump had once sent Epstein a birthday letter in the early 2000s. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the claim and sued the paper for defamation, seeking at least $10 billion. On Friday, he said it was possible that someone else had written the letter and signed his name.
“That’s happened a lot,” he said. “All you have to do is take a look at the dossier … everything is fake with that administration,” referencing his accusation that Democrats were behind the so-called “Epstein files.”
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that Epstein’s birthday book also included a note from former President Bill Clinton.
“You should focus on Clinton. You should focus on the president of Harvard, former president of Harvard,” Trump said, referring to Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary who reportedly met many times with Epstein. “You should focus on some of the hedge fund guys. I’ll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein. I sure as hell didn’t.”
Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.
Also on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was expected to meet for a second time in two days with Epstein’s longtime associate. Ghislane Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for sex trafficking. The president said that he was not aware of what had happened in the first meeting, on Thursday, and claimed that he had not thought about pardoning Maxwell or commuting her sentence, but added: “I’m allowed to do it.”
Trump on pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell: "I'm allowed to do it" pic.twitter.com/e9bjwFqfYr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 25, 2025
While the Epstein saga took up a significant portion of the press gaggle, Trump also touched on a range of other topics, including the latest failed attempt at a ceasefire in Gaza, where he implied that Hamas would not release the remaining hostages because the war on Gaza would only intensify once they were freed.
“They know what happens after you get the final hostages,” he said. “And basically, because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal.”
Read more
about the Trump-Epstein scandal
