The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper that first revealed the bawdy birthday card Donald Trump allegedly wrote for Jeffrey Epstein says his instant response on learning of its report was to call Murdoch from Air Force One.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the bombshell birthday book in July, including the allegation that Trump’s contribution to the 2003 album, compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell for the pedophile financier’s 50th birthday, was a poem written within a sketch of a naked woman. The signature was placed to resemble pubic hair.
The card included the line, “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
The president’s aides informed Trump about the contents of the letter in the birthday book while he was aboard the presidential plane heading to D.C., according to a report by the Journal tracking the Trump administration’s failure to contain the Epstein controversy.
Trump, 79, immediately told his aides that he would try to kill the story himself before it was published, the Journal said.
He added that he believed the letter did not exist and that he would “never write such a letter,” it added. Trump has since repeated those claims.
While still on board, Trump called the Journal’s 94-year-old proprietor, insisting the story was untrue “and that he should handle it,” according to a person familiar with the brief call.
The story was published despite Trump’s personal intervention.
A furious Trump took to Truth Social to outline the course of events regarding the infamous letter. “The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” he posted.
“Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so. The Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE, but Emma Tucker didn’t want to hear that. Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly.”
The defamation lawsuit was filed, with the Journal saying that defendants had moved to dismiss the case this week.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called the Journal article “a lazy rewrite of a dead story.”
“It’s not news that Epstein knew Donald Trump, because Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of his club for being a creep,” Jackson said. “Democrats and the media knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them while President Trump was calling for transparency, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents.”
The Journal article also reports that Trump was shocked to find his MAGA fanbase was still fixating on the Epstein issue during a Turning Point USA event in July this year.
Trump reportedly told aides that he “couldn’t understand why people were so obsessed” with Epstein and that they did not understand “that Palm Beach in the 90s was a different time.”
The letter Trump claims he did not write, sketch, or sign was finally released to the public earlier this month when the House committee dumped over 30,000 documents relating to Epstein.
Trump and Murdoch were seen together during a state banquet at Windsor Castle as part of the president’s state visit to the U.K. earlier this month.
Trump biographer Michael Wolff claimed it was a strategic move, telling the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast this month, “What Trump intimates have told me is, because he believes that he can ‘pressure the old man into a settlement.’”
