President Donald Trump ignored several questions from reporters about the trove of Epstein emails that were released on Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee.
Trump declined to take questions after signing the bill that officially ended the government shutdown, and the White House cut the live stream immediately after one reporter could be heard asking about the files.
Over the noise in the Oval Office following the signing of the bill, one reporter asks, “Mr. President, can you respond to these Epstein emails that were released today?” Trump could be seen ignoring the question.
In footage from the live stream hosted by the White House, another reporter can be heard attempting to ask about the files right before the feed is cut off.
“Trump just ignored a bunch of reporter questions about Epstein in the Oval Office‚" MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin noted on X.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on Trump’s reaction.
In the emails, the deceased sex trafficker demonstrated the disdain he had developed for the president by the time he was in office, describing him as a “maniac” with “early dementia”.
Epstein also suggested in one email that Trump, who “spent hours” at Epstein’s home with one of his victims, “knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” referring to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell who recruited victims for the financier and his powerful friends.
Epstein and Trump had previously been friends for more than a decade, with Epstein telling Trump biographer Michael Wolff, “I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.” Their relationship had soured by Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump raged over the Epstein files on Truth Social on Wednesday, claiming, “The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects.” He added, “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap.”
Trump signed the bill to officially end the government shutdown after 43 days late Wednesday night, following the bill’s successful passage in the House earlier that day.
With a captive audience in the Oval Office waiting for him to sign the bill and end the shutdown, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, the president took the time to deliver a monologue that touched on several of his favorite subjects: the failures of the Democrats, the disaster that was Obamacare, and the election of Zohran Mamdani, who he called a communist, as mayor of New York City.
“This is a big day, a big night,” the president began, before launching into a tirade against the Democrats.
“Democrats in Congress shut down the government of the U.S. in an attempt to extort American taxpayers for hundreds of billions of dollars for illegal aliens and people who came into our country illegally,” he ranted.
“They wanted to pay them trillions of dollars, which would have really hurt our healthcare businesses and recipients at levels never seen before. Today we are sending a clear message that we will never give into extortion.”
“Republicans never wanted a shutdown, and voted 15 times for a clean continuation of funding,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office on Wednesday night.
“Yet the extremists in the other party insisted on creating the longest government shutdown in American history, and they did it purely for political reasons.”
The shutdown, which began on Oct. 1 after the Senate failed to pass a temporary funding bill, lasted almost 43 days and resulted in the temporary suspension of SNAP benefits, canceled flights, and thousands of government workers being asked to work without pay or placed on temporary leave.
Republicans have been adamant in laying blame for the shutdown at the feet of the Democrats, while Democrats argued that the Republicans’ unwillingness to compromise on the proposed extension of healthcare subsidies that ensure health insurance is affordable for millions of Americans was the reason for the shutdown.
Ultimately, eight Democratic senators voted to end the shutdown, earning the ire of other top figures in the party, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who condemned the vote as “pathetic” and a “surrender,” urging his fellow Democrats to not “bend the knee.”
