Donald Trump is riding high on ending the shutdown, and enjoying the fallout from the BBC row – but the Epstein scandal just won’t go away
Donald Trump can’t catch a break. Riding high on a victory over Senate Democrats, with the government about to re-open, and surfing a wave of rage over the BBC row – and still he can’t get away from the one scandal that has even come close to sticking to him. Epstein.
Newly released emails from Epstein claim he ‘spent hours’ at Epstein’s home with a sex-trafficking victim, that he “knew about the girls” and was the “dog that hasn’t barked” after Epstein was arrested.
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- He sprayed a world leader with his own cologne and asked how many wives he has
- He demanded Israel pardon Netanyahu
- He gave a hugely ill-judged speech to mark Veterans Day
- And gave a fairly ill-judged tour of the White House to Laura Ingraham
Here’s everything you need to know
Epstein
1. Trump ‘spent hours’ at Epstein’s house with sex trafficking victim
Dead Paedophile Jeffrey Epstein wrote in a 2011 email that Donald Trump had “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with a victim of sex trafficking and said in a separate message years later that Trump “knew about the girls,” according to communications released Wednesday. The emails, made public by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, add to the questions about Trump’s friendship with Epstein and about any knowledge he may have had in what prosecutors call a yearslong effort by Epstein to exploit underage girls. The Republican president has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago. In one 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein girlfriend now imprisoned for conspiring to engage in sex trafficking, Epstein wrote, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” He added that Trump had “spent hours at my house” with a person whose name is blacked out of the emails but who House Democrats identified as a “victim.” Epstein wrote that Trump “has never once been mentioned.” In a separate email to journalist Michael Wolff, who has written extensively about Trump, Epstein wrote of Trump, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a fiery statement accusing House Democrats of “selectively leaking” private correspondence to paint what she described as a “false and malicious” picture of the president. She called the allegations a politically motivated smear. “The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” Leavitt said. “The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions.”
Trump vs the Beeb
2. Starmer backs the BBC at PMQs
Keir Starmer said he would always “stand up” the BBC – despite Trump’s demand of $1bn in damages over the Panorama edit.
Asked by Lib Dem leader Ed Davey to reject the demand, Starmer said: “I believe in a strong and independent BBC. Some would rather the BBC didn’t exist…I will always stand up for a strong and independent BBC.” He didn’t mention Trump by name, but it seems unlikely he would stand by while the US President rinses the state-owned broadcaster for cash.
3. Trump claims BBC ‘defrauded the public’ in documentary which was not broadcast in US
Trump said the BBC “defrauded the public” and that he had an “obligation” to take legal action over the Panorama episode, which was not broadcast in the US. Trump is threatening to take the BBC to court for $1bn if they don’t issue an apology by Friday. But it’s increasingly unclear that he would have any grounds to do so. Primarily, it’s unlikely any court in the world would offer damages for the BBC claiming he’d incited violence on January 6th, given several US courts and the House of Representatives had already come to the same conclusion. Secondly, he’d struggle to get a London court to hear the case, given defamation actions have a 12 month limit – and the documentary was broadcast in October 2024. And he’d struggle even more if, as it’s reported he will, he tries to get the case heard in Florida. The Panorama programme was never broadcast in the US, neither is iPlayer available.
But in fresh clips from his increasingly entertaining interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, he said: “I think I have an obligation to do it, you can’t allow people to do that. I guess I have to. They defrauded the public and they’ve admitted it. This is within one of our great allies, supposedly our great ally.”
4. ‘It was a beautiful and calming speech’
In the same interview, he claimed his January 6th speech was “a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical.”
Arguments can be, and have been, had about whether Trump passed the legal bar for inciting a riot. But it was not a “calming” speech. You can read a full transcript of it here.
Calming it was not.
King Donald
Trump sprayed the Syrian president with his own fragrance, and asked him how many wives he has
Not much to add to the headline, other than that this is not normal behaviour. Even for him.
5. Trump demands Israel pre-emptively pardon Netanyahu
Trump has sent a letter to Isaac Herzog, the President of the State of Israel, calling on him to pre-emptively pardon Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s Prime Minister is up on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – and denies all wrongdoing. In his letter, Trump opens by claiming his fragile Gaza deal has secured “peace that has been sought for at least 3,000 years”, which is abject nonsense on many levels. Branding the prosecution “lawfare”, he suggested it was time to “let Bibi unite Israel” by giving him a “full pardon.” He wrote: “While I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli Justice System, and its requirements, I believe that this “case” against Bibi, who has fought alongside me for a long time, including against the very tough adversary of Israel, Iran, is a political, unjustified prosecution.” Some might describe this as an unprecedented interference in the politics and judicial system of another country.
6. Repeatedly attacked Joe Biden during a Veterans Day speech
Trump gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day, the US equivalent of Remembrance Day. And of course he treated it with the respect and sombre tone that the occasion deserves.
Nah, just kidding. He used it for a string of brazenly political attacks on foes both current and historical, and to trumpet the imminent end of the Government Shutdown.
But a frequent target for his attacks was, naturally, his predecessor and the only person ever to beat him in an election, Joe Biden, whom he claimed had allowed the backlog of Veterans benefit claims to “explode…like we had never seen before”, and accused his predecessor of “taking away…choice and accountability” for Veterans needing medical treatment. “And the other thing is we fired thousands of people who didn’t take care of our great veterans. They were sadists, they were sick people, they were thieves, they were everything you want to name. And we got rid of over 9,000 of them. And then when Biden came in, he hired them back, many of them, but we got rid of them and I think we got rid them permanently. We replaced them with people who love our veterans, not people who are sick people.”
7. He had a pop at France about World Wars I and II
Trump had a pop at France and other countries for celebrating VE day, of course. Trump earlier this year floated the idea of renaming Veterans Day to “Victory Day for World War I”, with May 8th designated “Victory Day for World War II”.
“Today is not only Veterans Day, but it’s my proclamation that we are now going to be saying and calling [it] Victory Day for World War I,” Trump said. “I saw France was celebrating ‘Victory Day’, but we didn’t. And I saw France was celebrating another ‘victory day’ for World War II, and other countries were celebrating. They were all celebrated. We’re the one that won the wars.”
8. And, of course, he lied about his approval rating
As the speech barrelled on, and veered further and further from what it was supposed to be – a celebration of the sacrifice of military personnel who risked their lives for the country – Trump just started spinning out lies about how popular he is.
“We have a 92% approval rating,” he lied. “We took that up from 32%.”
Now, it’s unclear whether he was claiming that of his personal approval, or for approval of the Veterans Affairs department – he’s used that figure before in that context. But either way, it’s nonsense.
The VA department had a satisfaction rate among people who had used health care services of around 92.8% in August, which is a high mark, but only 0.8 higher than it was under Biden. It has risen more or less every month since the figures started being taken in March 2023, when it was 90.4%. It has never fallen below 90%, regardless of who was in charge.
The broader VA trust survey, which has run since 2016, shows trust has improved more or less constantly since the start of Trump’s first term, when it was 55%, through Biden’s term when it peaked at around 81%. It’s currently around 79.2%.
On general approval, Trump’s figures remain worse than any other President ever. Gallup has him on 41% approve. The only president to have a lower approval rating in the October of the first year of his term is…Donald Trump in October 2017, when he was down to 37%. Only George W Bush had a similar rating at this point of his second term, also on 41%.
Economy stupid
9. Trump on tour
Scrambling to get the public to believe Trump is on their side after he repeatedly denied prices were going up and suggested “Affordability” was a Democrat hoax, the White House is sending him out on tour.
According to CNN, Trump’s advisors have had conversations about him travelling the country to give economy-focused speeches. “You can’t convince people that their experience, what they’re feeling at home, isn’t reality,” one of the officials said.
10. ‘We don’t have talented people’
On the subject of giving the American people a morale boost, Trump declared them all untalented. Laura Ingraham quizzed him on the future of the H-1B “talent” visa, which Right Wingers are very keen to scrap or dramatically reduce. “You have to bring in talent,” Trump said. “Well, we have plenty of talented people in America,” Ingraham replied… to which Trump responded “No you don’t. No you don’t. No.”
The Gold House
11. Pure brass neck
In extended scenes from his interview with Laura Ingraham, broadcast last night, Trump took her on a tour of his increasingly shiny White House “refurbishments”. Their first stop was a tour of the “Presidential Walk Of Fame”, which used to be called the West Collonade. Of course, now Trump has stuck a bunch of gold-painted nicknacks to the wall, and photos or paintings of every President ever. Apart from Joe Biden, who is represented by a photo of an autopen, because Donald Trump has a 12-year-old’s sense of humour.
A number of issues stick out. Firstly, he’s had two big signs made that read “The Presidential Walk Of Fame” in cursive text, which he’s very proud of, despite them making the People’s House look like the driveway of a mid-range Atlantic City casino. Also, he doesn’t seem clear on what they’re made of.
“Take a look at this if you want to see detail. Most people do a sign and paint it on the wall,” he said. “So that’s half inch thick bronze. Carved. By a very talented person. And it’s brass. It’s pure brass.”
There is, of course, no such thing as pure brass, it’s an alloy of copper and zinc. Second, the sign is written in an off-the-shelf typeface, which costs about $40 to licence*. Given that, it’s extremely unlikely it was hand crafted, and more likely it was machined. Also, for anyone looking for more evidence that Trump never intends to leave the White House, he hasn’t left any space at the end of the Collonade for any Presidents after him.
*For the benefit of typeface nerds, it’s called Shelley Script, and the kerning on the cap T is way off.
12. Speakers in the bushes
As they continued the tour, Ingraham asked where he’d had the speakers installed for the paved over Rose Garden. “All here,” he replied. To which Ingraham said, apparently unimpressed, “In the bushes?”
She went on to ask him how long he’d been a frustrated DJ, and he replied… “I don’t do that a lot.”
He does. He is reported to delight in swanning about the Rose Garden patio with an iPad picking the songs played on the speakers in the bushes. Which is exactly what he used to do on the Terrace at Mar A Lago.