President Donald Trump said Thursday that he supports first lady Melania Trump's moving ahead with her threat to sue former President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden over comments that she is linked to deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"Well, I said, 'Go forward.' You know, I've done pretty well on these lawsuits lately, and I said, 'Go forward with it,'" Trump said during an interview.
During an Aug. 5 appearance on the "Channel 5 With Andrew Callaghan" podcast, Hunter Biden claimed while responding to a question about why the Trump administration might be withholding documents related to the disgraced financier that Epstein introduced Melania Trump to her husband.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
"Do I think that there's an actual list?" Biden asked, referencing Epstein's rumored client list.
"No, I don't think that there's an actual list. I don't think that he was that stupid. But do I think that what they do have implicates him?" he asked, referencing Trump.
"Yeah, I think so. You know, I mean, Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are like so wide and deep."
In a letter obtained by The Hill dated Aug. 6, Melania Trump's attorney said that Hunter Biden's remarks are "false, disparaging, defamatory," and "extremely salacious." The first lady has threatened to sue Biden for more than $1 billion in damages.
On Thursday, Trump told Fox that Epstein had "nothing" to do with his being introduced to his wife and blasted the news media, saying, "They do that to demean. They make up stories.
"I mean, I can tell you exactly how it wasn't. It was another person, actually. I did meet through another person. But it wasn't Jeffrey Epstein.
"Yeah, I told her, 'Let's go ahead and do it.' I let her use my lawyers. She was very upset about it," Trump added.
In another appearance on Callaghan's show on Thursday, Hunter Biden was asked whether he would formally apologize to the first lady, as her lawyer had demanded to avert a lawsuit.
"F*** that. That's not going to happen," he said.
"First of all is, what I said was what I have heard and seen reported and written primarily from Michael Wolff," Biden said.
"But also dating back all the way to 2019 when The New York Times — Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman — reported that sources said Jeffrey Epstein claimed to be the person who introduced Donald Trump to Melania at that time."
The former first son also said that Melania Trump's threat of a lawsuit doesn't "add up to anything other than a designed distraction."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.